Aug 15, 2023 City Council on 2023-08-15 1:00 PM

good afternoon welcome to this meeting of the Denton City Council it is 101 on Tuesday August 15 2023 we have a quorum so I'll call the meeting to order first thing is do we have any comments from citizens okay so no comments thank you one thing not listed on the agenda we need to give the city manager direction the issue is questions from council and they their timeliness and and how staff is to adjust or proceed with questions that don't come on on time some were received over the weekend Councilman back Mayor Pro Tem had some additional questions that came late Sunday night and Monday and and and okay Councilman McGee and so as a body we need to give staff direction round numbers that took up 30 40 hours to get all the questions out to do it twice and so I just we just need to have a agreement or we need to give direction as a body either we're going to they don't make it in by Sunday ask them live or we're going to say and in my my thought that's my preference because it frees up staff to work on Monday it doesn't require them to work over the weekend as much it just would be they're planning to be here anyway on Tuesday so they can just answer the questions so I think either we get them in early or we don't and that's fine but we need to give some direction and we need to be in my words not the staff's mindful of staff time that it takes to pull these together the different department heads and so if we get if we can just have an agreement on how to proceed that then will inform the city manager how she's to proceed or if we need to hire more people to a deal with this issue if we're not willing to are able to get them in early we just got to do something the current plan does not work so open the floor for discussion direction on how to deal with Council's issue of timing and questions not getting in on time and specifically to that if the questions don't get in on time on Sunday what does the city manager to do that's that's I'm trying to zero in on that obviously we're here hour early because we have an action-packed agenda but this is something we've got to address counselor Meltzer the objective of getting questions in in advance is so staff can be prepared you know and so that they can I those items can either not come up for discussion because they're already addressed or so they're not blindsided so I think it's either way a benefit for questions to get to staff I think the only question is whether the response can come back to council before and I mean I'd be interested in taking guidance from staff you know after a certain point I mean they're gonna have to be dealt with one way or the other I would think having the opportunity to work on them before you're actually in session would be a benefit but whether they can get back to us before session may be you know a question after a certain point and I'd be so personally willing to live with whatever they say the response framework is well I'm trying to empower them because the problem you have with that approach is if you leave it to them then they want to do what's right and then you get this versus if I send something in late they're empowered to say as a council you decided no we don't have we're not going to answer these so council direction lends support and weight to staff to have a take a position versus taking them one off and I want to help them out but you know I think it just takes away some of the ambiguity I take you you make a valid point on whether it's an answer or you know questions in early whether to answer or not if that's the decision matrix for you I that's that that point is well made where do you fall on that though you know sometimes the response is this will be addressed in session you know and and I find that a completely acceptable response whether it's you know for whatever reason staff chooses to present in session so you know is there a cutoff time you're saying I hear you're saying you kind of take the the onus of being responsive off of staff if they understand that we understand that there's expectation changes at a certain point well I think actually correct me if I'm wrong I think the expectation was by Sunday night that was correct so so I think it'd be perfectly reasonable for us to have an expectation that questions asked after Sunday night you know won't be that the responses won't be provided prior to the meeting I think that's perfectly reasonable okay anyone else councillor McGee mayor pro tem I am I concur with a council member Meltzer I had also assumed that questions that are not in by Sunday night would not be answered in time for the meeting and just to use myself as an example I asked a couple of questions and I put in the email no need to have these it was some general knowledge for myself about stuff going through on consent consent I wanted to make sure that staff understood that did not need to have these in time for the meeting but just wanted to go ahead and ask them so whenever they send email responses they were okay so that's what I included in my emails that were not sent by Sunday night just so staff would know so I'm agreeing anything not in by Sunday night might or might not get answered in time for for me okay mayor pro tem thank you mr. mayor yeah my understanding and recollection from the the retreat was the the Sunday timeline in particular was for consent items because we were trying to keep people from waiting there in the audience and in the hallway and and so that you know you need to get all those questions in so that we could just say you know pull or not pull and not have a discussion on those consent items that's what the timeliness of that was in terms of the the other items I agree with a counselor McGee and counselor Meltzer on the idea that you know if you can't can't get it in until the meeting itself you can't get into the meeting itself I mean the other alternative is I just reserve all my questions to the to the actual meetings and ask them in session and that gives staff no no time to prepare no no advance warning of the kinds of materials that I'd be interested in and and you know that's actually probably a worse situation well but let me I see you but I do want to clarify you may be alone in that understanding of only for consent agenda it is for the entire agenda that so you I don't is anyone else under that misunderstanding that you wanted question only for the consent yeah you're alone in that so it is for the entire agenda and so I you if I hear you right you're well I don't want to put words in your mouth so I too am leaning towards where counselor Meltzer counselor McGee is if they're not in by Sunday then they you just ask them live or that you send them and staff knows they're coming and are prepared for him live but the the process of typing them and so that everyone because the benefit is I get to see the questions asked and answered as well and it informed it may inform my decision that sort of thing so that's the benefit of getting getting them in advance as well as that your peers kind of understand but so I just need to get some direction from you on how you expect those to be handled that come in after Sunday across the entire agenda no I I agree that if they can't answer it in advance or you know what wish to follow a certain protocol there's no reason that they can't answer those in session okay anyone else can't councilman Holland could we put a number on that Sunday night at seven o'clock Sunday night at eight o'clock whatever preference is three in the afternoon but that suits me yeah but staff generally then gets it to the our city manager better said gets it to the department heads and to the department so then produce answers and get back but that that process actually takes place that evening trying to give grace to say Sunday evening still gives them time to do what they need to do councilman message you have yeah I did want to just add you know I remember I don't know if it existed before but to me you know this started under city manager Todd Howman just you know he really unveiled on me they've the value of getting the questions in before so the staff isn't blindsided but the idea of actually getting the answers before was like pure icing like lucky I mean really over delivery and you know we've become a we've become sort of spoiled you know it's it's I think it has great benefit because sometimes I don't then need to ask the question you know it's a satisfactorily resolved but you know that that to me the main point is is you knowing what we want to ask about so that you can be prepared okay so the majority that I've heard say in by Sunday if not by Sunday no need for it you know it's understood that answers may not come in advance and those would need to be asking the meeting any and so that's anything that you need to add city manager I just want to make sure first of all councilmember Meltzer gets him in on Saturday it's wonderful I'm just saying that because that really helps because what I do is we get them and then I wait till for Sunday evening because I don't want to interrupt other people's time off and then we get it out Sunday night or first thing Monday morning if you look at all the questions and then the other stuff that we have it takes them it took us about 40 hours to put all this together in two days so it is very labor-intensive and we want to get it back out to you to be honest because it lessens all the questions that are asked and the length of time staff are here and the length of time you have to wait and go through things so we want to get you the answers we don't want you to have to wait and then ask all your questions and that's why I kind of I'll be honest with you I push the staff I want these I want these answers back Monica I say Monica I want this out by such and such a time on Monday so you have time to review it because I know there's been a couple times we didn't give you ample time to review it that's not fair either so it would just be much appreciated we know there's gonna be special circumstances somebody's gonna ask you a question you got to get it out there that's not the problem it's just knowing it takes us a lot of time to pull this together to proof it to get it back out and the staff are trying to do their other jobs as well and it's just would be appreciate if you could get your questions in by Sunday 3 but if you have to stretch it till 6 I will hold off and get it out on at 6 okay very good that takes us our first work session item item a ID two three five nine I'm sorry oh yes is there anything on the consent that we need to pull so or yeah and if you expect a presentation thank you for that councillor McGee we're modifying the agenda a little better to give some clarity to this process councillor Meltzer yeah I don't know if it's already been caught in the revision but in the version I reviewed AO needs to be pulled as an individual item it's the nominations for the nominating committee okay anyone else okay got it Councilmember Watts yeah I'd sit in for staff I wanted to pull one of the names from the nomination list for the boards and commissions to vote independently name is David Zoltner for the ethics board okay and that is oh right yeah be okay consent be yes thank you all right yes so that's a pull we're pulling AO and and be no presentations needed just separate votes well AO maybe if there's a slide into the list of names and then be there's no presentation needed just separate vote okay thank you for that takes us back to our work session and it's item a ID two three five nine seven receive report hold discussion give staff direction regarding the fiscal year 2023 24 annual internal audit plan hello Mayor and Council I'm Madison Rorschach Denton City Auditor I'm going to present our proposed fiscal year 23 24 annual internal audit plan just as a quick refresher the City Auditor's Office is responsible for providing independent and objective reviews of city functions to strengthen public trust and promote continuous improvement throughout the city these reviews generally fall under one of three lines of services related to assurance consulting and investigations as shown in the figure in addition we provide support to the Board of Ethics and have administrative activities to support these services at the this time the office's largest focus is on providing assurance services which includes new audits audit follow-up reviews and then compliance reviews which will be new for the next fiscal year contingent on the compliance specialist position being funded as a reminder in 2022 the City Auditor's Office adopted a strategic plan with three strategies including strategy a perform high quality impactful audit projects strategy B provide valuable non-audit services and strategy C engaged in community members the audit plan is most directly related to strategy a and so I've got the current progress towards those goals presented on the slide for your reference and the full progress will be presented at the in October as part of the quarter fourth quarter sorry fourth quarter performance report next illustrated my proposed time budget for fiscal year 2324 I am to spend about 50 percent of the department's time next year performing audit work including new audit projects and follow-up reviews as well as other audit related engagements this is a decrease percentage wise from last year but not in actual hours due to the addition of the compliance program altogether this budget dedicates about 75% of the offices time to assurance services which is similar to the current fiscal year in addition it includes Board of Ethics time because I serve as the liaison for them as well as administrative work and then also include some time for potential investigations that come in through the fraud waste and abuse hotline and other consulting projects such as analysis requests that are submitted or requested by the City Manager's Office or a City Council so for this budget there are generally two areas where I'm requesting recommendations from counter sorry direction from Council so to set the stage for that this table visualizes the functional areas of the city that have received audit coverage in the last six years I stayed on the bottom of the slide one of the offices strategic goals and to is to ensure that about 90% of the city's functional areas are audited at least once during that time period and so this shows kind of historically where we've conducted audits throughout the city the ones highlighted in gray have not had an audit during the last six fiscal years six years which is when the office was started so with that information this table lists ten options for new audit projects to be performed next fiscal year further information about the proposed scope of each of these projects was included in your backup these options were based on the 2023 risk assessment that my department conducted as well as discussions with city leadership and they're ranked based on a weighted risk score from 0 to 100 with 100 being the highest as stated on the bottom of the slide the proposed time budget provides about 3800 hours to perform new audit projects the table also shows the projects and hours at the internal audit advisory committee recommended we perform next year as you can see they recommended that reduced scope options be developed and presented to the City Council for the community housing initiatives and park management and planning projects those reduced scope options were detailed in the plan addendum that was included in your backup and then finally for the first time we conducted a public survey that was intended to solicit residents prioritization of these projects between July 19th and August 4th we received about 45 we received 45 responses from that survey and then based on those we assigned a priority category based on those responses which is on the far right of the slide so I can answer any questions y'all have about the project options and then I also have like a survey tool that we can use if that if you would like to to get direction okay thank you and just to confirm I think I read them back up that it's of the list only airport operations didn't make the total number of hours is that I read that right that was based on the audit committee's recommendation okay yeah got it okay okay mayor for Tim thank you mr. mayor I'm gonna pick right back up on your question I saw the answer to the questions providing the backup but I guess I don't understand the the recommendation from the committee what more you the answer was more unique projects but I I don't understand can you can help me understand what their recommendation was and then I have a follow-up to that for you yeah so this all of these projects total to forty seven hundred hours and we only have thirty eight hundred to spend so they were trying to basically get the most number of projects on the list while still remaining in that budget so that's why they recommended the reduced scope options that are highlighted and then for airport they their recommendation was to not conduct it because there is an airport advisory committee essentially so they felt that it had adequate oversight for now that's your question yes it did now that was very clear that the I think I had not been aware that that the cap was the 3800 hours so you were somewhere between your proposed and their recommendation so in in light of that I guess my real question to you is as the professional in the in the area what do you feel like you can accomplish within your thirty eight hundred hours is is perhaps more germane than the advice from the IAC because you you know what you're doing more necessarily than than anybody else and in the department that's that's not meant to be pejorative it's meant to be used about your question so all of I believe all these projects are worthwhile we just only have thirty eight hundred hours for next year so probably if like if you don't pick airport operations it'll come up next year on the plan for us to potentially get picked then does that make sense yes so if you don't pick airport operations can you pick the rest of the nine into the I'm not adding up the hours but can you add can you get it into that's only what up five hundred hours so that's where he said 42 no see yeah so I think kill something else yeah I think I believe that it would cover down to public safety communications I'd have to pull out my calculator but if we just took basically the from the top highest risk or to the to wherever fits does that make sense yes like if we just went down the list and added the hours up I think we get down to public safety communications semi public safety and communication would get you to thirty eight hundred hours yes so anything above that including that would be on the audit plan based on the risk just the risk score is that make sense I think so I think I think I need to cogitate so I'll pass the baton for now before giving directions thank you okay Councilman Melton and Councilman Burke in general there's you know there's an abundance of good things to work on and your department seems to crank away at it very efficiently and your recommendations are almost invariably accepted and acted upon so you know I'm I'm kind of happy to follow and support it does make me want to ask the question though whether you think at a macro you know at a meta level is our capacity as big as it is this an adequate amount of capacity for an operation the size of the city I mean yeah I think long term I would like to hire one more auditor but I think but with this year's budget it wasn't really feasible to include that especially with the compliance specialist which will increase our capacity to do different kinds of work but will still be useful to the city so that might come next year I think you know we have a very large budget compared to other cities our size of population so I think we do need more staff eventually but we don't have it for next year thank you okay Councilman Burke cogitative method right now to get through this but the simplistic view that I'm recognizing here is is the weight it's risk score because I was looking through and in saying well critical and high and medium and low and you know how how how it's all of this gonna how we're gonna pull all of this off and then I recognize a rated risk score which I think is the only thing on there that gives me any kind of any kind of knowledge as to which one may be the highest risk vendor management apparently is a high risk and then it goes down the list of electric electric systems what would be what would what would make me think any differently other than the weighted risk score that you have there that would put any of the audit projects above one or the other I guess it's just really a matter of your priorities we weight financial risk the highest but that doesn't necessarily mean that y'all agree that's just how we consider it so if we rate weighted the these four different types of risk differently they might come out a little differently so that's kind of our way to to rank them just as like this is our recommendation I guess but there's a lot of different factors right and so you might be more interested in we need to address the operational risk or versus the financial risk okay well I would definitely I would want to be all of those things a vendor at electric and community and development it just all goes together for me and I would I wouldn't mind following the weighted risk score if there's any kind of direction or any question in that regard thank you okay anyone else but did not did not see that the the the committee's recommendation I thought it only left out airport and satisfy the 3800 year but now you're telling me that that calculations I read it wrong so so their recommendation where you see the blue the highlighted in that column was to reduce the scope of some of the projects as we originally conceived of them go and then and that would get to the 3800 hours and we would do all of the projects except for airport for their recommendation yeah that's that's what I align with because it captured all and I take councilman bird's point the what I looked at the column that to inform my decision is the operational risk because that is just kind of at its core how it functions right uninterrupted unimpeded okay so that kind of guides my you know financial risk certainly but but the operational risk is what I keyed in on and their recommendation captured all the highs and criticals and so I was comfortable with that so that's that's my recommendation anyone else yes I'll just provide direction that I'm I'm okay with the the risk assessment as presented I guess it's it's sorted by way to risk if and I'm I'm actually in support of of either either the the CAO or the IC hours whatever the department feels it can it could get in so I'm okay I mean I know that's not direction but I guess that is I am supportive of staffs recommendation wherever that falls okay anyone else council member do you where do you you know for me as far as it's and when we look at the operational risk you know all of those things are falling under the critical high in medium anyway so if I say that I am in agreement with the recommendation you know which recommendation is that is that the financial or the operational or reputational or ethical or the weighted score which what do we what do we think that's the priority and right now the way that I'm looking at it is just through the weighted risk score is is what's putting is showing me you know what the priority is unless I just go with all the critical in the in the high and in the medium you know and where is that where does that fall in line I believe if I heard Madison correctly the if you the decision matrix just kind of pre kind of set out and other than itemizing it individually the audit department as a full investigation is that CAO hours the full hours they can get down and through park management no public safety communications I just did the math and so yeah basically the difference would be for I guess the CAO column we would get the park management right and then you'd get to and through park management right okay we get through animal services but we do smaller projects for two of those projects yes so the audit board recommendation you get one more but you get a narrowed look into the different departments listed with the otter's office you get through animal services at a full investigation and whatever's not captured would go to like in that example airport and non-vehicle would would bubble to the top next year that's fine okay okay anyone else councilman wants you yeah I might be the only ones a little confused so the direction that we're giving is based upon how we perceive it on you talked about mayor that your direction was what mine was the audit that I AAC hours and that carries us all the way down through animal services operations paired down where the blue highlights are okay and so all right that's what that's what I was trying to understand is the only different when you say it's it's it's a smaller range of audits under the IA IA AC it's really just three one is none which is airport operations and then the others are 300 hours 200 hours and then you're taking the 500 hours out of airport operations so the difference between the CAO and the IAC is one additional audit it's two actually but so well that's well the airport operation falls out with the IA AC is that correct correct and then everything else would be performed but the park and community housing would be reduced from what we originally presented right under the IAC right okay and staff your recommendation is it's more of we ranked it this way but it would get if we just went down the list and added it up we would get through park management okay good heavens I mean roll the dice I guess go yeah let me yield before sure sure that's what we get staff recommendation okay councilman hollow I do the staff recommendation as well and do the balance of the of the audits first first thing next year okay all right councilman Melzer yeah to be perfectly honest I had understood this as he would review the presentation before as sequential and then this is where he landed I didn't fully get even as make my comments that you were asked us to choose between the two columns so helpful discussion and I just for unless you've already got your four to me the question relevant question would be what would you not be doing if you did the advisory board you know what would you not be doing within community housing and within park management and planning that you would otherwise want to do under the staff recommendation if we went with that I would ask you to choose between these focus areas for those projects basically there's two options for community housing one would look at the shelter shelter management options and then for parks there's three options okay all right and that's helpful enough for me to be able to say I want to go with the staff recommendation rather than the advisory committee okay sorry advisory committee okay so that that carries so it'll be the staff on it but that's okay yep any other comments questions okay thank you yeah so I think the direction is to do basically all these through park management that's correct yeah cool yes and then there's one more piece to this nor that and this is just these are the follow-up reviews we're planning to do the ones highlighted in the red box the audit committee agreed with this recommendation so unless you have concerns about which ones we're going to follow up with next year that's good okay questions concerns about the follow-up review planning mayor potential I did have one and maybe you can just help me do we anticipate some of these involved increasing costs and projecting out increasing costs I mean to some degree all them involved increasing costs but some are more particular time sensitive is this based this recommendation based on the operational risk or or how was this basis because I could see there's there's a lot of like for instance energy portfolio was the one that jumped to mind and there's a lot of changes coming down the pike for this and and so push back another year so I believe that came out in 2021 so it's not it's just not really come up yet so a lot of this is based on when we issue a recommendation the department comes back and says we agree we'll get it done by doing XYZ by X date and so we try to come at go out to we'll come back after that date so that we don't have to do multiple follow-ups basically if that makes sense we can minimize the amount of follow-ups okay oh no okay that last comment helped okay I guess I'm okay but I would just you know and I know staff will do this just be mindful of large large changes that might require a course correction so but I'm okay as it stands down and a lot of the departments do they'll do something and they'll be like does this seem good in between we just don't do a formal report on it to counsel okay any other questions concerns about the follow-ups seeing none okay so we're all good with a yep perfect takes us to item B ID two three five nine six receive report hold discussion give staff direction regarding audit project zero zero five utility street cuts second follow-up review all right still Madison Rocha Denton City Auditor I'm gonna present our follow-up review findings as a reminder audit follow-up reviews are intended to provide information on what changes have been made in response to an issued audit this review is based on recommendations and management responses originally compiled in the utility street cuts audit which was issued in August of 2019 and initially followed up on in December of 2020 so I'll cover improvements made in both the initial and second follow-up review as part of this presentation in general we found that significant improvements have been made to utility cut standards and right away permit managed the right away permit management process since the original audit so to begin the original audit found that the ordinance that governed right-of-way construction and permitting processes had not been updated in over 50 years and lacked some provisions that could improve effectiveness an updated ordinance was adopted in November of 2019 and addressed many of these issues most notably the updated ordinance allows the city to penalize a permittee for violating the ordinance or the terms of the permit in addition it created a new fee structure that encourages permittees to complete their right away construction work on time this fee structure was implemented in January 2021 and is routinely reviewed along with other development inspection fees these changes should aid the right away inspectors and enforcing permit requirements which are designed to protect not only the city's roadways but also its residents additionally the original audit found that enhancements to how right-of-way permits were tracked and managed could improve the efficiency of the public works inspections right away division which struggled to keep up with a large workload at the time of the original audit since the audit the public works inspections division has developed standard right-of-way inspection guidance which has been used as the number of white right-of-way inspectors increased facilitating consistency in addition inspection results are now being tracked in an automated permit management solution which allows for easier review and analysis of inspection results next the original audit found that improvements could be made to the practices used when restoring street cuts to further minimize their effects in particular we recommended that the city require contractors to seal the joints of each patch the city tests the street patches test that street patches adhere to ride quality standards and that if a street had been recently repaired and placed under a moratorium and not be cut without proper authorization in general we found these practices had generally been formalized and implemented specifically the streets division began sealing all street cuts that they restore which accounts for almost 90% of all utility street cut restorations this requirement was formalized in the 2021 update to the city's standard construction specifications as for ride quality the public works inspections division has purchased the equipment needed to perform that testing however a standard operating procedure on how to test street patches for ride quality was not developed until August of 2023 and then lastly the number of utility cuts made on streets should be minimized as much as possible since cuts introduce weaknesses in the pavement that can accelerate the deterioration of the street for this reason we recommended that the water utilities department which performs the most recent cuts there sorry which reforms the most cuts develop a method to notify the streets division when a cut was made especially on streets that had recently been repaired or reconstructed based on this review the public works department has identified a way to pull a report of all streets cut every six months or so so that the streets division can use this information when they're planning their maintenance activities so the new reporting process should help to reduce the risk that streets can the streets division cannot fully account for the impact of utility street cuts finally the original audit found that improvements were needed in the inspections process to ensure that the city's street restoration standards were being met in particular city utilities that cut into streets did not appear to be consistently using the required concrete flowable backfill and their utility trenches and were instead using a variety of materials including the material that they had excavated out of the ground similarly the original audit recommended that the city's public works inspection division perform inspections of all city street cut restorations to ensure that city utility crews were complying with these requirements based on the file reviews the city's utilities are still not using the flowable backfill material as originally required however they have begun consistently using an aggregate flexible base or flex base backfill material that is typically used when constructing large sections of roadway in addition they have purchased the compaction equipment necessary to prop necessary to properly use this material well this practice does not comply with the city's current standards it is a significant improvement from backfilling with excavated material according to public work staff external utilities are also currently allowed to use this flexible the flex base backfill upon request however this change in the standards has not been formally adopted for at least two years according to department staff this was an administrative oversight and they plan to include this change in the standards when they next update in them in January of 2024 based on a review of 60 right away permits 46 were issued for utility cuts made in asphalt or concrete of those only two or about 4% did not have evidence that a forms inspection was performed and both were issued for emergency repairs made by city of Denton utilities which indicates that forms inspections are generally being performed for all street cuts finally the original audit recommended that public works inspections begin inspecting street patches during the guarantee or warranty period since then the city has extended the warranty period from one to two years and has begun scheduling warranty inspections using the new automated permit management software which should help to ensure that city patches do not fail too quickly which would accelerate the deterioration of road so in summary we found that 11 of the 13 recommendations issued as part of the original utility street cuts audit are now implemented the two recommendations that are still in progress are listed on the slide based on a discussion with management a standard operating procedure for conducting ride quality testing has recently been developed and should be implemented soon in addition the city's construction standards will be updated in January 2024 to allow for the use of flexible sorry flex base backfill material instead of flowable backfill which is currently required this update will formalize current practices and ensure external utilities are not required to meet different standards than internal utilities so based on this information we plan to perform an informal follow-up review next fiscal year to complete this project so any questions okay thank you questions for staff member Tim thank you and I appreciate the the answer the backup that you're gonna get back to me or get back to us rather on the fiscal impacts on adoption and of these different materials and or versus backfill versus other methods so there's as I understand and this is a clarity question there's there's two permitted methods the the flex base and the flow whatever those are the two permitted they're gonna be in our manuals and so I guess my question the clarification on my backup question was do we anticipate that this is costing the city money through lack of adoption of either one of these preferred methods or is is it the case that the two of those are 90% of the cases and everything else is an edge case and therefore we're not really costing us wear and tear lifetime duty cycle money I don't think that they're between the two standards is a impact to the city cost-wise on maintenance of roads as long as they're done correctly the problem originally was that they were using not either of them right so that was a win so they weren't compacted correctly which caused the patches to fail this was years ago right so that's corrected now and now it's just a question of we need to have that in our standards to make sure that external utilities meet the same requirements that our internal utilities do so there's not a double standard basically okay but I guess just to tease out the one piece we you don't it's not staff's feel that this is this is a long-term ongoing problem that is causing early failure of roadways if if our guidance is followed in right if the construction standards are followed it shouldn't cause long-term early failure of the roadways okay and do we have an estimate for how much our standards are being I mean we have standards but then as you are often report in these or tell us in these reports we have to have the standard we have to monitor the standard and we have to document that we monitor the standard the sort of three legs of the stool do and it wasn't clear to me that that that was one of the things I think that you found we needed to work on was the documentation in the original audit yeah and they when we did the initial follow-up we found that this the patches are mostly being filled now with the flex base which is technically not the standard but is kind of the we are about to adopt it as the standard almost the almost 100% of the time okay and then the actual standard was done by the external utilities so they were meeting that it's just that there's a different standard that so we are meeting the current standard based on our review of documentation of those patches and we have the inspectors now to my understanding going and documenting yes that's that they're meeting those standards okay that that that answers my question appreciate thank you medicine okay any other counselor wants so to summarize just so I've got it clear before my question so we've got external utility patches and internal utility patches external being some contractor third-party contractor internal is our crew correct and under the external utilities the standard has been to use the flow flowable flowable backfill it's a concrete flowable yeah it's concrete basically all right and that's the standard just for the external or is that the standard per our code for both external and internal for our construction standards that is the standard no matter whether it's external internal correct okay and so then the flex base has come in because you're saying the external has always used the liquid concrete because that's the standard but our internals have used flex base primarily after identifying it and not putting that right there was an issue with what we were using and now they're using flex base okay so which is the better standard I mean you'd have to ask an engineer and according to our engineering department they're similar okay so this will come back to us I'm not going to belabor the question on this particular issue in the weeds so whether what standard we have is that going to come back to the council to talk about that because I thought it's great appreciate that my question becomes more on why are we choose why are we changing our standards we had them before for a reason and I don't those don't have to be answered today so is it is gonna come back to us at some point when we go to yeah I mean they don't need to be this is just an audit so I know I'm way past you know well I think we have some work to do to come back she's gonna do a follow-up audit okay so what we can do is in that follow-up audit talk about those questions and quality of the flex base in the flowable product which is more of a wet concrete you know porting right my understanding is that if a water line breaks again or something like that it's harder to get back through flowable because it's concrete so it's solidified whereas a normal road it would be that aggregate material anyway which is what the flex base is so I don't I can't tell you we can do that in the follow-up that's fine no no problem okay customer bird I also have a question in regards to the the roadway itself does it make a difference if it's a county road or city road state road how is all all of that comes into play well I can tell you that county roads they do their work they're not many times depending on where it is it's it's different we do you know curb and gutter and all that kind of stuff that is totally different text dot Becky I can't speak to that I don't yeah well we only looked at it's part of the audit at city roads yeah I but that's what we control so I don't know I don't know what the standard is for text otter or county roads or just thinking in terms of the emergency you know I'm just emergency break with the city hit it first or will we rely on the county to come through or rely on the state to come through first well we we have a great relationship with the county with the with the text dot and others so if there is a situation where there's some damage in a road we work with the partner whoever that is and work with him and if to be honest if it's a safety issue we're gonna go out there and do something immediately put something around it make sure that it's not someone's not driving over it but we usually let the party who owns the road do the work right yeah I think if there was a waterline break on under a county road that was our waterline we would certainly go fix it immediately I can't necessarily speak to how I think it gets repaired per our process I don't know necessarily who reviews that because it's a not our room any other questions you know okay thank you very much thank you that takes us to item C ID two three one four zero seven receive report whole discussion give staff direction regarding the preliminary FYI 2023 2024 proposed budget tax rate capital improvement program and five-year financial forecast good afternoon mayor council Cassie Ogden assistant city manager this is just a quick follow-up presentation from our August 5th budget workshop I'm here today really mainly to get direction on the tax rate before we move forward with another follow-up on September 12th and then public hearings on the 19th so you've seen most of this presentation again on the fifth but here are appraised value history so this year appraised values increased about 15 percent there's still 1.3 percent under review but our average taxable home value increased from three hundred and seven thousand to three hundred and forty four thousand so again we've had pretty strong a growth trend over the last couple of years I think our ten-year average is about nine percent increase in our appraised values so 15 percent increase this year the in the city managers proposed budget that was presented on August 5th the proposed tax rate is the same as last year's with a no new revenue rate of 49 cents we did have the county look at our calculations for the voter approval rate and that changed from the last time you saw this so it was 63 cents it's gone down to 57 cents now is the voter approval rate so again we talked about this on the fifth but the tax rate discussion really the city managers proposed budget includes a tax rate of 56 cents you can see that the difference in a half cent decrease so 55 cents we would only be able to a fund we would fund 2.9 million so a little less than 3 million in supplementals compared to the no new revenue rate would be cutting the budget by 5.7 million dollars and a half cent tax rate increase on the other side so 56 and a half cents would be the 4.9 plus an additional 1.2 in supplementals based on the discussion on the fifth we did add McKinney and Louisville as a comparison cities I did want to note Louisville their debt service rate portion of their tax rate the INS rate is only 12 cents compared to our 20 cents so significantly lower there for Louisville so again just to follow up this is what the average residential property owner would see as far as tax rate so their average tax bill would be 1,932 based on the 56 cents that's proposed it'd be about $209 a year an increase based on that average taxable value increase general fund forecast again no changes since the last time you saw this so this is for FY 24 proposing a balanced budget with funding 4.9 million in supplementals and here's the proposed supplementals that were in the city managers budget I highlighted the roadway funding strategy the million dollars because I did hear some council discussion about what we should do with that so we are going to come back on the 12th and give you some options whether we fund the roadway funding strategy at a million or there's some additional positions in animal services that we could fund as well as some other things that we'd like to discuss as an option but but this does keep the same tax rate so whether we fund the roadway funding strategy or some additional FTEs it would be at the same tax rate the 56 cents and so just combined the overall tax well overall tax and utility impact for average residential customer you can see total of 251 dollars annually increasing based on our tax bill increase and then the wastewater increase the 11% that we're proposing for wastewater rates and with that I'm here to get direction on the tax rate this is really the the base of how we put the budget together so propose two options there's additional option but I left it off the screen I didn't think anyone would be supportive of increasing the tax rate but decreasing the tax rate and then maintaining the current tax rate so happy to answer any questions that you may have okay and before that I want to make sure thank you for the answers winning with respect to tax exempt properties which is not completely unique to individual cities and I don't know about the comparison cities I didn't evaluate it that closely but am I reading this right that 1.25 wait 12.52 million that's the the revenue that is captured kind of that would equate for the taxes of properties in the city of Denton yes okay got it okay any questions councilman Watts and then councilmember Meltzer so we are coming back next week with the one September 12 so I don't know if I I don't know if I've got an answer to the question which I think would be germane as far as our tax rate that I asked last time not it's not anybody's fault because I can't get a straight answer from anybody the the November ballot initiatives for reduction of property taxes because if for discussion sake because I've heard that they are going to be active for 2023 they're either anticipating sending the tax bills out with them or they're gonna reset so I don't know but I'm not sure why somebody can't give us a definitive answer not staff but I mean anybody but if it is effective on the 20 this year 2023 the primary thing that will affect us is the homestead exemption the ten cents on the school tax rate won't affect the city it'll affect right so have we calculated that if that is applicable this tax year what how that affects what we're looking at in other words how much revenue does that take off the tax rolls because I think our current exemption is what 40,000 for this for city is that I don't know what is it for the city well in any event it could be potentially double that and I think that's gonna probably add up to a few dollars so I think I mean I can give direction on a tax rate but I really want to have that information from somebody I mean I don't know if it's our legislative delegation I don't know if you call the Center Benton courts office down in Houston who spearheaded this for many years but it just seems like when you read news reports it's all over the place and if we have to add another $50,000 of an exemption to homestead properties based upon our tax rate which is what 56 what is that is that gonna be about $56 I'll be about $56 what would that be 50,000 or 60,000 if we applied our tax rate now that's about 300 bucks so that means each homestead property would take off $300 from our budget from our revenue so I don't know how many homestead properties there are but we've got fifty one thousand I think or how many I think we have a little over twenty one thousand homestead homestead properties exemptions okay so if you multiply that times three hundred twenty dollars that's a lot of money right I mean I don't know is it is it six hundred thousand is it so what I will say is that the the form that the state puts out the Comptroller form that we use to calculate the tax rate which takes into account all of these things has not changed so I do expect it to go into effect next year for us because based on that nothing has changed as far as the information that we have I appreciate that that's a great answer I sure would like to have something from the Comptroller's office an email saying definitively the reason we sent this out is because this homestead exemption will not apply except to two twenty twenty four property taxes because we're hearing something totally coming you can pull up news report after news report and I don't know which it is but if if it does apply this year it's a hit even when it applies next year it's gonna be a hit six million bucks so it just would be nice to find somebody in the state legislature or the state government that can give us and maybe we can reach out to the school district what is their thought I mean what is their do they think it's gonna be applied this year so I don't belabor it I just if we could find out something because we don't want to come up to frame voting on a budget and then having an understanding that somehow we're six million dollars short I'd rather know that definitively moving forward sure okay thank you okay councilman Melton yeah I've a few points if I may so this is as I recall is proposing a 12% increase correct in taxes so I don't really care that much that like we say the rates the same we know it's a 12% increase so be transparent about it but you're reflecting on slide 10 that you know you're sort of moderating that by saying but look you know utilities aren't going up by that much you know and kind of the total ask it works out to about six percent but my recollection of the utility conversation was that at least several members did not you're asking to look at water electric and solid waste increases to be spread over several years not just zeros and then spread right and so I don't know it was that like settled you know is that was this settled then or was that still not settled we're currently we're not proposing because we are still waiting on a cost of service study for both electric and solid waste so we're not proposing to raise the rates for next year pending that cost of service study because what that gives us is more information about how to adjust those rates so we can have the consultant look at giving us a phased approach over a five-year period versus you know one year increase so either way you know these these rates aren't really determined yet so then just looking at the the property tax piece you know my my own way of thinking about it there are a few pieces that are still moving one is that well first I'll say you know it makes intuitive it's intuitively compelling to me to have as a starting point the wage inflation rate for two reasons one is that it reflects the fact that personnel is far and away the biggest driver of our own expenses and it's a proxy for our residents ability increased ability to pay whereas their home valuations has no impact on that at all unless they're selling which case they may not be in debt in any way so wage inflation rate is kind of like a baseline for me but then as far as where to deviate from that for one thing it's we had an exchange that really struck me to the effect that not all master plans are funded I mean I would think that that would at least be a surface conscious discussion like you know what I assume when you pass a master plan it's because you intend to do that and then if you're not going to do it you have to talk about the fact that well things have changed or whatever but otherwise I would have assumed that the budget is put together with an eye to following whatever master plans have been agreed to so so that's a big moving piece the other question I have is about the the supplementals it seems to me that some of these are things that we already agreed to so you know that's why I kind of wonder like to what extent are they supplemental why are we still why do they have that status rather than budgeted for instance you know didn't didn't we already give direction in support of funding the ambassador program in which case why is that still hanging out there or something to decide no it's just that those are the costs that'll show up in this budget they are not in this budget was currently in it will be in the next budget 23 24 so we want to be real transparent to make sure that all these costs that you see here are not currently budgeted in our current budget okay but it leaves me a little question about what is the significance of calling something supplemental versus building it into your well actually I agree with you on that and I like that term of these are what did you term you use because it wasn't supplemental agreed items or something it was a word that was really much better not as supplemental these are things that need to go in to the budget like obviously or something but yeah I mean they've already we've already given direction to do it I think that's the case with merit increase too but maybe I'm wrong about that I mean we did the leveling the leveling but I guess merit increase is still theoretically still optional so I guess you know I wonder which others of these items have we actually already agreed to and they're not really supplemental there things that ought to be baked in so so my inclination is to look at wage inflation rate plus you know funding items directed by master plans let's we want to change our direction on those plus items that we've already agreed to fund and that would be kind of so you know see see where that comes out it's kind of how I'd be inclined to look at it that you know that would guide you to a dollar amount and from that you could back out a tax rate so I know that's a lot yeah we did provide information on the way about the wage inflation rate yes I understand it would not fund any of the so-called supplementals that's why I'm saying okay I still adjust from there you know and I can change the list to show you kind of what council's already agreed upon it would be really if you want to count master plans or I don't know if you count operational kind of studies that council adopted so the police staffing study that was one that was done in 2019 and we you know at the time council agreed to add about five positions to a year to police as well as the ambassador program but beyond that I think everything else you know our new maybe the Main Street or the economic development partnership contract increase and sets an existing contract but everything else I think would be in addition to right yeah so my inclination would be to set the rate to fund those things and then and then I don't know if we can look at these things more frequently than annually like can you look at sales tax quarterly and see if you're tracking ahead then you you know you apply it in priority order to your supplementals you know and I think that's I mean thanks to good conservative budgeting it's often the case that sales tech not always but often the sales tax comes in ahead of projection but that that would be my approach I'm glad we get another bite at the apple because I realize what I said doesn't give you you know a number it gives you a formula so I just just I think there's several things Merritt was already approved by council police's contract the ambassador program but I'm gonna I'll say this as this city continues to grow as we add staff and fire police solid waste these some of these other utilities you got to have the internal services to go along with it so HR audit library those kinds of things the expectation is that you have the staffing to actually do the work so I say that just as well you have three here that are what I call just do it's because you've already said it yeah there are things in here that are based on the growth based on adding staff from others that you see not here but you all were okay with from utilities like adding people to DME those things all those impact general fund well then that that's why I was asking like what does it mean to put something in supplementals like if that's really I think member template last time yeah if it's really like core function scaling to growth it should just be budgeted you know and because it's presenting it as supplemental suggests it's more optional than maybe it really is so thank you know I'm gonna get take that guidance if it's expressed that way you know okay anyone else thank you mr. Mary I'm gonna pick right up from there and I appreciate the the response to the my question the backup of that it where as I understand it all of the supplemental positions were or all the categories at least were growth related and so this is and I appreciate the response in the memo about delineating I think there was three of the items that were truly not growth related and and sort of so not not calling something growth and putting it into our budget is a de facto cut to our city services as the population grows so I mean it's the flip side of what the city manager just said but if we've agreed to a certain service level is more I think the question we are being asked and I know that we have to parse it in terms of last year's budget this year's budget but you know we if we can't cover those agreed upon service levels and if we've agreed upon and I concur with councillor Meltzer if we agreed upon a certain service level and then I really wish we would put those into the budget and and and so maybe you know I and I kind of alluded to this at the last budget discussion can we parse what was in last year's budget what is growth and what is what is truly new business in and put you know it you know even if we we put growth in new business into supplemental before historical continuity can we at least parse those in the way we did in the memo or a similar way so that we can really see as councillor Meltzer said this isn't really this isn't this is really our new budget our old budget was this is our new budget to maintain this level of service these are the new things and there was only like three new things or four new things so if we could do that I think that would help our discussion I know sometimes we have to make the big hard decision based on the finances of the year okay we're actually gonna cut services this year but so far staff has not had to force us to do that in years and years we've been able to manage our service output in a quality way and and I think it's gonna help our decision process to see you know growth versus true supplements so I appreciate the the backup in the in the dialogue okay any other questions for said that's what yeah I have a response to that and I appreciate the aspiration of this discussion but let's make sure we understand past councils passed what they wanted to pass we have to review every year based upon the current circumstances how we want to do our budget I have no problem with parsing out what's growth what supplemental the point is we still have to find the finances the money to pay for whatever we asked for so how we want to label it how we want to do that staff can figure out how to do that they've been doing budgets for years and years and years but to your comment councilmember Melzer about the wage inflation rate so just so that people understand that are listening to us because it is in our questions that if we started there correct me if I'm wrong by reading this answer that we would start with 4.8 million dollars less that's where we're starting from which basically wipes out all the quote-unquote supplementals but if we go along with the discussion of hey let's parse it out into different categories it even takes away the things that we've said we want so I understand why staff is doing this they're just simply saying here's last year's budget however you want to label it I really don't care but they're gonna have to tell us this is the additional money we're asking for and this is the money that we have available based upon the specific tax rate so as in the end it comes down to us making a decision on what she's asked us for which is the tax rate we can talk about labeling this one thing or another that's fine we still have to find the money to pay for it so I don't know about this whole thing of moving to the wage inflation rate I understand the principle and the aspiration of everybody if this is what people are getting basically in general then we need to hold ourselves to that standard if that's a policy that this City Council wants to adopt fair enough especially if you want to try it this year we basically got to start all over because now we have only a hundred thousand dollars left and that's not a I mean is this the only increase from last year's budget last year's budget not you know we're making our assumptions of two or three percent growth sales - I mean last year's budget and it's in the five-year forecast I know but our budget is increasing more than four point nine million dollars yeah is that is that not correct and part of it is what everybody's been discussing and that is reoccurring reoccurring you've got it you know do this contractual obligations increases in our contracts there's benefits there's personnel based on our comp and class study yeah it's huge I mean it's huge because of inflation and then contracts that we have to hire benefits supplies every every yes it's huge the increase has gone up a lot because of the cost of services and the cost of doing business the cost of paying employees the growth all based on growth so I would say if we're gonna follow the line of thought to where we separate out growth items to truly what is quote-unquote new then when we have that list of growth items we have to list each and every one of those budget if we're gonna do this we're gonna do it that way then we need to list how much did this applies I mean we can see the line yeah we can see the line item but but I'm talking about having it separated out where you're not lost in a five-year projection because if we do no supplementals our budget still increasing yes it is and and and just look at insurance just take insurance from 2023 at 3 million five hundred and seventy six six hundred seventy two four million the next year a little bit more for a little more next year but it goes up to five million in 2028 those are projected increases not necessarily the actual but from last year the last year our budget has increased from 2023 to the proposed 2024 including supplementals has increased 12 about third about eleven and a half million dollars eight and a half of those are the merit increase are the cost of living adjustments for employees that you will not see like that in the future because we did not do our due diligence as an organization to do this every two to three years that we didn't do one since 2016 which put us in the hole severely yes I I mean I hear what you all are saying I don't disagree with it but in the end we present it any way we want but we still have to figure out how much money do we have or do we not how much do we have it's how much are we gonna ask for because we're asking for this from every citizen property owner in the in the city and every person that comes and buys things here so it does matter but I guess sometimes we can get things so convoluted that it becomes less simple and so however you want to label it Paul is fine but we still got to figure out the tax rate and according to you where you want to start we've got to basically take away the supplemental page is that I mean that's what you said yeah are you that's I'm done yeah yeah yeah yeah I mean you're sort of stopping halfway through my thought process because it's working my way back up to how do we include it right in other words okay you haven't said that yet oh yeah no I did that's why I was talking about what are the items that we committed to that are part of master plans that are that are required by growth yeah and then we're starting to hear the commentary they're like yeah they're kind of in there but they but they weren't discussed that way you know my way of putting it is different than saying we're keeping the tax rate the same which is a pretty meaningless statement I mean it can be used politically to sound meaningful but the truth is the proposals to increase tax by 12 percent that's not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing if it's for things that must be done because we've already agreed to do them you know because they're urgent because they're important and you know we can have an adult conversation with the residents to say we're asking you to pay 12 percent more and here's why that's and and I'm trying to get to the here's why yeah that's basically it all right any other questions so for me I want to just kind of touch on a couple of things and thank you staff for your help I'd like to follow up if I could I have the print out here so for those that do not know city of Carrollton puts out a residential municipal municipal cost of services comparison between cities and I was watching Louisville's budget presentation this weekend shout out to Mayor TJ I'm gonna beat him in the pizza contest soon it's on the 23rd but yes I'm a municipal junkie but I say that because this is a separate city putting out a report and I found it compelling but my request is can you can you help me find the link or whatever so I can see the entire report just separate from this and then because I want to read more into kind of how that's that's built and then the other thing is so that we can clearly I've been talking about the budgeting tool but want to give those listening and if I could get some what we did I forget the resource that we put out but it was fantastic what we have kind of a screenshot of the website and a graphic that points people to kind of give them instructions arrows etc where to click to get to the budget and so I'd like to do something similar but also just verbally do people go to the city of Denton site discuss Denton where is it it's on the city of Denton if you go to departments under finance you can see the proposed budget the budgeting tool oh I'm sorry balancing act yes I don't know the exact link but I think if you search in the search function on our website it'll it'll pull up search balancing act yes okay great but if we can have like put together like an infographic for that then they'll make it easy to share and Ryan maybe you can help me with a post that'd be great because trying to drive more interaction that way and frankly I'd like to just the exercise we talked about today everyone can do those things and kind of drive that and have that discussion and then come back with the results that sort of thing so I think it's important to to dig into that further so thank you for that those councilbert you know what we're talking about are other cities and sometimes comparing ourselves to other cities and what they're having to you know what's driving them I'm always in the back of my mind I'm always thinking but are they at the same growth level that we are I'm talking about a city like Louisville I mean are they they are they been roomed out and do they grow any further do they put their their funding back into what they have to make it better while a city like ours is is new everything that's coming in is new you know how does that work for us when we're when we're connecting ourselves to you know a city like Carrollton or Louisville and and in other other communities that are essentially locked in how do we how do we justify all of that how do we give our citizens the opportunity to understand and know that we when we ask for more is because we need more we need more because it's it's it's new it's growth how do we do we do we have much trouble hearing back from citizens in that regard I want to say I think that's a fair question but I you have to look at it beyond just the individual data points right so for example we were full service city so whereas we take a direct hit and have to deal with DME and those things it's it's a blessing and it presents challenges that other cities don't have so you you you account for that the great thing about this is it's a city separate city to put it together so they don't have that natural kind of bent it's just a gin it's a separate city that kind of looked at other cities to compare but but you kind of but then you look at also you can dig deeper in the Louisville's budget and understand their commercial dropped off a bit this year right and whereas we are is picked up and so you you you look at that and that factors in so it's just a number of different data points and you know not listed here not close enough to us but City of Grapevine's at 26 cents around numbers Capel is 22 cents around numbers no debt so but they have they don't have curb and gutter right so you just kind of a you take a huge look at all the different data points and and you're trying to find a balance right to kind of inform how do how do one do things and then it's it's it's not it's not lost upon me that if I looked at the no offense Mac if I looked at the City of Louisville's legal budget a doubt they're spending as much as we are right what and you can look into that and and identify all the different things why that is it just is right and so those are things that we're spending that they're not spending and those those are right and I think it's fair to criticize how just internally how are we doing being fiscally responsible in all the different departments but there's a price to be paid for being first to the courthouse right or last at a courthouse or however we look at those things infrastructure wise are we keeping up you know and and how we balance a Louisville never lowered their rates that matters right lowered them and came back up and did all these different things so it's it's all fair but I to answer your questions in summary I think it's just not looking at a specific number I think that's problematic to look at a specific number but to look at kind of a whole look at a city where they're doing what's different and and really for me it's just what can we learn right I I was interested to learn about this report to now read it and see what what I can get out of it and just the importance of making sure that our you know our constituents know that when we say well we need to add more and this is why and with them comparing you know without the knowledge without the just a basic simple knowledge that oh well Louisville didn't do anything or such a such city didn't have to do all of that well they just have to understand what we're in a different type of growth pattern that they are so a lot a lot of educate a lot of education can go on there certainly the other thing I want to mention then we haven't really talked about this is I don't know you receive the report the survey on our utilities and the report came back I've never seen such a glowing report on the public's viewpoint of our our utilities so it's important that you know that because the citizens of this city believe that our utilities are doing a great job providing services and where they are right now I think of course we've talked about this about communicating these things better but these are things that the citizens really value is their water their sewer their solid waste their electricity and when you look at those things and you compare them to other cities we're right up there so I would say along the same lines with all the other departments we have the same kind of sort of respect from our citizens so I think telling the truth about what is needed and why is probably the best way to do it to our citizens so they do understand yeah and to pick up on that it is interesting to see because I've watched different cities and all at the comp and in comp studies it's just never ending right so it's this city okay they adjusted now everyone else has adjust and so it really has been interesting but rightfully so hard-earned money right but the other thing that I I look forward to us having a conversation we're starting it now but I think in the future years the city of Denton has to change from a neighborhood approach because of the growth to a regional approach you got to spend more to make that jump and then maintain it right just like he talked about the salary you got to spend now to make that jump and then we adjust so that that's gonna be interesting conversation for future councils is how do we go from a neighborhood Denia Recreation Center to a regional south of Denton rec center because it's gonna cost more but it's gonna serve more people and match up with the growth so it'll be a good conversation to have but but it's coming counselor McGee hey mr. mayor um hey Cassie on the slot on slide 9 can I just ask how you arrived at a million for the roadway funding strategy were you just trying to key in on a million is just a placeholder that was how much we could afford with maintaining the current tax rate after I included all of the other so that's so a million is the max okay so the other four to five well three to four is on us okay right thank you mr. mayor thank you and I think councilman watts you wanted to have we were that was kind of discussed whether to continue that am I right like the the the roadway funding strategy because of the amount I just wanted to put that back in front of people so that we know that that's a discussion point I think she'd said I think she'd said earlier that we're gonna take that up and just one real quick comment I think my question might have been a little I think I got a better question for the homestead does that homestead addition apply to city municipalities I'm sorry yeah sorry sorry sorry councilman well I don't have the floor sorry no go right ahead you're up here and then we'll go to councilman hollow I think I can answer that question briefly if we're talking about the homestead exemption that was passed and Senate bill 2 in the second session we are analyzing that bill right now but our current understanding is that the homestead exemption does not apply to cities only applies to school districts there is an appraisal cap that will come into effect next year that applies to all tax and jurisdictions and we'll have that analysis out this week in the Friday report apologize councilmember Holland sorry yeah can you repeat that real quick only school districts for the homestead exemption that was provisions that were within SB 2 okay yeah sorry yeah there are 18 cities listed on this on this list including us so where what's a similar city to Denton in that 17 we got to you we got two universities and a college we got a ton of federal federal land exempted we have an airport yeah that's a great great point we have we have a ton of services that at least the majority of these cities don't have I'm just wondering which one best best compares to us Dallas and for work I mean to be real frank with you it's Dallas for worth because Lewisville Carrollton Addison all those cities around us do not have what we have from the for airports things like that they contract some of their services for utilities Capel I mean you could go down the list farmers branch none of those so you're really looking at maybe well even Arlington we have a small airport McKinney has a small airport I believe Garland yeah Garland has theirs so when you look at there's not a lot you can say we're very when you use the equates sort of sign somebody's wrong answer so if you look at Garland look at Garland point seven one six if my eyes are not deceiving me yeah no yeah and I to pick up on that McKinney is is a good comp just because they do have an airport and they're looking at going to a a commercial airport they're looking at CEOs there they're building a new downtown they as far as City Hall they are now put it they just put out RFP for municipal buildings downtown they have a parking garage so a lot of similarities I don't know if they have a college they do have a homeless shelter so they have they have challenges with how to make sure their community is taken care of and challenges with other communities leveraging that resource in their area there are a lot of comparisons with McKinney and as far as not I don't know if they have a community college that sort of thing Frisco has UNT campus there so it's it's obviously that's a different animal Garland is a great point on the the the municipal component of things so again I think it's similar to what Councilman Bird pointed out it's it's kind of a you're not gonna find a one-for-one but what can we learn from different cities and and that fit our kind of keeping Denton understanding where Denton is are there things we can learn from other cities is what I take away more than a straight line comparison so any other questions okay thank you thank you no thank you you said you're coming back on the 12th I heard come back on the 12th yeah I'm just following I know this is a question not a what what is what is staff need I'm asking I think you're proposing the 59 cents and if we want to 56 cents and if so if there's anyone that has an assenting opinion that that's what you need to hear correct yes counselor how and that's maintaining the current stat of a tax rate thank you yeah yeah so those haven't in you know councilman Melzer yeah that's a 12% increase right that's okay just to be clear I mean you got to speak to people I take your point and you can and please by all means continue to say 12% but I will tell you you and I believe in effective communication I've got to speak to people in the language that they understand versus forcing them to understand differently and maybe people out there are like me and 12% do I carry the one do I move the decimals right I I believe it's important to me if maybe it's somebody wants to hear whole numbers this is going to add three bucks to your tax bill I think it's important to understand all variations of that not for someone to adopt a 12% 12 and a half percent increase mindset but to meet them where they are hey what what language how can I communicate this best to you I prefer whole numbers great it's hundreds of dollars I prefer percentages it's 1200 3% I prefer just a tax rate I can do the math myself okay the tax rate is this right all right I just some people just want to know are you raising that tax rate yes or no right and so it's just a matter of meeting people where they are versus trying to get people to get where I am and and and again that's maybe just because I'm a whole number type guy councilman Mansley yeah no no that points well taken and I appreciate staff laying out that they're not saying not to do it because we've aren't you know we've talked about the growth needs that and the prior commitments that drive it but yeah probably the simplest language that staff has provided is it's $209 increase on the average bill that that is is very down-to-earth you know what I object to what you sense in my keeping bring it up is I think it's it's not transparent to imply that that you know we're keeping things the same and and it's just evaluations went up we have nothing you know nothing we can do about that you know I'll tell you the evidence that people don't understand that is how much effort there is at the state level to try to control valuations valuations don't drive how much your tax bill is legislators drive that because you already know what the valuation is so that that's so I would I'm what I poke at is the sort of making it seem like we're not raising taxes but you know we are we are you know giving direction to do that and for very good reasons I'm just asking to be open about it and staff has given the very clear language to do that $209 increase on the average bill but but I my concern with that would be we don't know all scenarios and there may be a property scenario where they are not experiencing any increase so to say that everyone's getting an increase to some degree between zero and this is not if Tex dot comes and widens the road takes half your property which they're doing currently then that would decrease the amount of property ergo decreasing you may have made some money on the sale but then you also decrease your tax liability and so it's not universally true to say I I'm not comfortable saying for every parcel in the city of Denton this is a known fact because I just don't know every parcel in the city of Denton and so that's where I get a little nervous with the kind of that that approach to saying it's it's more transparent because just for me that requires me to have a level of understanding that I don't possess and I understand people give me grace by and large but I just that's why I think it's just meet people where they are but just to be clear from our perspective we want to be completely transparent and we do not want to make people think that they're getting oh you're not getting your taxes raised what we need to do is to say what are you getting for your tax dollars what we need to say is here's a chart of our utilities and where they've been and where they stand up against our competition what we need to do is to show the things that we're doing while we're adding more officers on the street because the population is growing what we need to do is show that we're trying to be preventative and proactive and keeping our downtown vibrant those are the things we need to be doing so that people see what they're getting for their tax dollars not that we're gonna cut your tax bill or we're we're gonna not raise your taxes because every year it's going to be impacted because it's exponentially growing as everything is growing so we have to do a great job of explaining what are you getting for your tax dollars and what I'd love to send the message to the state would be if my message would be at some point I should own my house you know at some point at some point you got to let me off the hook that would be my message councilman Holland what was this the illustration of the of the tax decrease the 56 cents was the was keeping it the same what was you showed it earlier of a tax decrease tax rams pardon me a half a cent tax rate decrease would be 2.9 million dollars of supplementals which would lower it to what 55 a little over 50 okay and what to to to council members melt Meltzer's well well made point what would that increase the average tax bill - I don't remember that off the top of my head but I can provide that on September 12th if you would like to see it it would be an increase yes yes it will still be an increase okay I just like if we're if we're gonna if we're gonna tell you know a 10% 10 to 12 percent increase is 2.09 I'd like to know what a decrease is it's gonna be something thank you okay Councilmember gee and then Councilman watts is your point that if there's your point that to not to avoid saying a 12% increase we would have to drop the tax rate multiple cents three four cents but the end at the end of any discussion if if if my colleague says and that's a $209 increase that's always gonna that's always gonna be a gotcha you know well increase the tax rate 209% nothing wrong with that I'm just saying that that that's always gonna happen I'm just wondering what would happen at 55 sure thank you sir thank you council what this is very frustrating because councilmember I appreciate you bringing that you can say 12% every time we talk about this from the very first budget presentation you have said the no new tax rate revenue is X here is the revenue we need for this here's what it is for each property taxpayer and I can tell you right now that you're using residential though right yes yeah well yeah so let the commercial people and other people who were looking at you know there's no way it goes up only two hundred nine dollars so I appreciate what you're saying but I get frustrated because when I hear you say that you know we want to be as transparent as possible I think we've been as transparent as possible so I think staff has been transparent in presenting the budget saying this is the no new tax rate this is the new tax rate this is what you're getting for your taxes so if people in the community still don't know that their tax rate bill may go up based upon the presentations they can see here from these slides I can tell them it's going up 12% all day long and they're not gonna understand it so I appreciate you saying it but I don't think if you're saying it because you think we're not being transparent I disagree with that I'm not saying that's what you're saying but based upon your comments that so it seems like and I think we've been very transparent that's why the state legislature passed the whole new tax no new tax rate revenue statement code and they're changing it all the time so I appreciate staff coming forward and laying out all the facts as they need to be for if people who are paying attention to understand that their tax rate bill their tax bill may go up doesn't mean it won't that it will but based upon the average or the mean or median however you're calculating it it's possible so I just needed to I just needed to say that okay anything else no we're all good all right thank you okay thank you very much no I'm good it's a it's good good conversations so so that takes us to item D ID 2 3 1 5 6 0 receive report hold discussion give staff direction regarding Denton municipal electrics proposed campus expansion capital improvement project mayor city council Tony Puente DME general manager appreciate your time this afternoon I'm gonna try to go through this as quickly as I can and make us painful and that's painful painless as possible we can accommodate you I will say I will say the right room I will say as soon as you get a chance go try some cookies in the back they're fantastic I probably gained five pounds just being back there so so just gonna go through a few slides with you I'm not gonna read all these the one item that I will mention as we have this this discussion please keep in the back of your mind conversations that we've had in closed session on some additional factors that we'd like for you to consider as you deliberate and and make a decision also want to mention that this project is part of our CIP that's being proposed already so it's already baked into our operating expenses by way of annual debt service and we'll talk a little bit about that as well and then finally just as a reminder that the debt that that's issued not just for this particular project if it's approved but any other project is considered self supporting debt so it's that debt is all paid by revenues of the electric utility so just briefly to kind of recap items that we've talked in the past currently DME has four buildings the oldest building being our field operations building built back in 1990 the the the youngest building and and is this 2015 building which is a modular building I really don't count that too much that's only expected to be there just for a very short period of time it's really this our system operations building built in 2012 so it's kind of layout for for what our current campus is this campus this currently encompass about 26 acres the pond that you that you see here encompasses about seven acres of those 26 and then we do also have a substation here that encompasses about 9.8 acres we have about a little bit less than 10 acres about 9.7 acres where the majority of our of our campus is kind of laid out here in our in our Spencer property just a little more what's included in in in that facility so all of DME is included in this facility but we also have a number of covered parkings we certainly need more we have areas for to keep our inventory whether it be utility poles transformers we also have a small frankly inadequate linemen training area that's part of the proposal here the concept is to to rebuild that and expand that to really make it something that that we can be proud of and certainly as we have future generations of linemen to come into our utility could have the adequate training to provide the service that's needed to to our customers and so again on this slide you'll see the total number of acreage 26.8 acres about 9.7 of that is is currently usable so a little bit about our utilization so this is some information that that I worked with our facility folks as you know wanting Tom Graemer for his assistance so the currently currently we have about 175 employees we have 187 employees that are budgeted but 175 that kind of rotate through through our campus so based on on that number count and the square footage that we have we have at about an 81 almost 82% utilization certainly there's spaces that aren't quite the recommended spaces the 125 foot type of spacing that is being recommended by by facilities but that's currently where we stand we do anticipate that you know as we continue to grow you see kind of our estimated headcount so in the next 20 years we'll be at about 333 employees again that's kind of a rough estimate based on our growth pattern and where we anticipate to be and so certainly you know the current campus as it's currently configured and certainly will not meet our needs past really the next five years will be really out of space if we do if we do look at a remodel this is a wall-to-wall remodel of our current buildings we would in eight years we would be at 100% utilization all of this is kind of based on this 125 foot per employee type of calculation so we did did we did look at a potential renovation to the existing campus again we are limited to the current square footage of 33,402 square feet if we did a wall-to-wall renovation we'd be looking about 17 million dollars at five hundred and ten dollars a square foot three buildings that we currently have are out of code compliance and so we would have to bring all those buildings up to to code based on a recent facility assessment that we made I already mentioned that within eight years we'll be at a hundred percent utilization of of that of that renovated campus if that's what we decide to do again that does not address many of the other issues that we're trying to address is additional coverage parking better training facilities more inventory space and and a number of other items that that we would like to include the campus expansion we'd be looking at adding a little bit over 8,200 square feet to the overall campus it would mean that we would demolish or likely repurpose three of those buildings likely would be just one of those buildings that we would repurpose for for more of an inventory space than necessarily to office staff we estimate that the cost of adding that additional footage brand-new roughly the 34,000 396 it's about 17 and a half million dollars so again same same bang for your buck and doing a new building versus renovating the existing building the big difference is that that gives us about 20 years of utilization of an expanded new building it also affords us the opportunity to co-locate customer service out of City Hall East East I believe East and and afford the city an opportunity to repurpose that for other public safety or or gone 510 5 million dollars and in our proposed CIP that is a plan or we propose the issue five million dollars next fiscal year that the exact dollar figure that we would come down from 75 million 30 years that is based on CEO projected that that four and a half million dollar already included in the 12% that that they 25 of life does not address all the other items that that we've used the rate increase again we if that if that happens we would be reducing the rate increase from 12% at that that concludes my I would also mention that we also have from your agenda and in the event that we need to go into that and have the the recommendation activity and have those things in hand and last of which I'll say it's just the construction car need and so this just can putting the right things in place to help our team give us a yes counselor Holland as opposed to the renovation do I assume that you would maintain the same current footprint essentially the same footprint that you've got now yeah I think I think that was an item that we had had a conversation in closed session I remember that yes sir so with that exception it so so all the work would be down something over here yeah yes sir so so we wouldn't tear anything down until we have a new structure in place I don't have to like not turn on the lights for three months or something only at your house no we'll keep your lights on thank you I appreciate that do you have an option that you prefer thank you anyone else Councilman Byrd okay Councilmember Meltzer yeah I just want to say that's a very persuasive analysis on the renovation versus the expansion you know essentially close to the same spending for buddy and it's not like your talk about you know situation where you where you're looking at preserving an architecturally worked out the funding where it's really not it's kind of amazing how much you can raise with an impact on the rate and I'll just remind you again I want to thank Tom for for his assistance it's really his numbers I'm just the one speaking them up here so thanks Tom yeah I didn't mean to give you any credit thank you thank you okay anyone else mayor pro tem then counselor McGee thank you mr. mayor so I think I mean I heard before so I'm just already I'm just gonna ask a couple questions because I think we we've reached the critical mass there the the for option one and I'm gonna try to be careful how I say this because we're an open session is it likely that the opportunities for option one as currently envisioned go away if we delay yes there's a possibility okay which would make it likely even more expensive to delay 100% okay and then just just for a point of education what what are we using the pond for it used to be the coolant pond for the Spencer plant but we don't own the Spencer plant but we own the pond yeah let me let me let me ask Terry Nolte because he's done some research into that although we may have a prospective buyer the water department for but but Terry the the proper term on the slide was lagoon it's a lagoon yes good catch mayor yeah actually mr. gay over there knows exactly what this lagoon is used for it's it's the the sludge that's generated at the Lake Louisville water treatment plant was stored in that lagoon that's what it's current what it was used for and is it currently being used for that no so Lake Louisville several years ago put in a sludge press and they no longer use the pond so it's sitting there as vacant space so to speak and I believe Stephen has a he's contacted us about a future use of that space for some additional cleanup technology on the water treatment side because he he's also constrained by the amount of real estate that's available for Lake Louisville and I know we want to stay on posting but that that is essentially to keep us on posting an additional synergy for the absolutely of that that property then then then I will add to the course of option one okay that's a counselor McGee I was something gonna say enthusiastic yes on option one because of the environmental impacts that we discussed and then closed so okay anyone else counselor watts yeah quick question oh well so you have a cost in here and I think so mr. city attorney refresh my memory so we have to be careful about I guess costs or I mean because I just got a couple I mean cost is presented here costs are okay to talk about okay costs are presented here okay all right so the original thought of how much this would cost overall with everything not going into what everything specifically entails is that a number that I mean I've heard a number but I think I heard it in closed session is that number my only question is of the you got forty one thousand six hundred twenty five square feet of the new expense of the campus expansion at five hundred and ten dollars a foot correct which is 17.5 me let's say and I'm not so sure construction costs are gonna I mean things go up things come down I mean I gotta just look at the real estate market but even it out at five years at your projection at six hundred eighty two dollars a foot all right if you multiply the forty one that's 28 million dollars I thought I'd heard and maybe I'm thinking of something else that the cost was considerably more than that when you take into other components so I'm trying to understand and I just I may ask this question in closed session if it's if it's I'm trying to see I'm trying I'm trying to walk either fine line or so can are we able to talk about costs outside of specifically stating what those costs represent no I think unless do you have a concern Tony I think Oscar yeah so I let me try to answer it this way so so so the our initial kind of internal assessment of what we needed was closer to 50 million dollars but I think as as we started to look at other considerations we felt that that may not be enough and so we did not want to be in a situation where we asked the council for 50 million dollars then came back and asked for another 10 or another 25 we think that the 75 million dollars will more than adequately address all the needs that we have certainly our goal would be that once we have a design we could certainly give council options on items that we could potentially pull back on and delay you know what one item that I'll mention is as much as we feel strongly the need for a a training area for our lineman that could be an area that we could postpone and do later but but certainly you know we'll try to pick out items within that estimate to include we've also made it a point to look at rooftop solar across our entire facility on everything that we have covered parking that we would certainly I think that would be a good one a good message for for our community I know you're I know you're smiling but but but I think at the end of the day I think when looking at rooftop solar with new construction I think that makes far more sense than when you retrofit an existing facility and so so I think I think those items are items that we can certainly come back to the council and if we want to pull back on the amount that we want to invest in a campus we can certainly do that so the rooftop solar is not included in the original conception plan in the original 50 in the campus expansion yeah it is not well okay so that's that's really and I'm just making an observation because I know in the capital improvement the capital budget it was like you said 75 million so you said it I didn't so if if we have the building at six hundred eighty two dollars a foot in five years that's 28 million so that's forty seven million dollars for all these other things you're talking about which is about almost one and a half one three quarters times the amount of the existing building so that's what I'm struggling with it's not it's not whether it's needed it's not it obviously is needed I'm trying to figure out how we got to 70 million 75 million when I'm looking at even projecting the cost at even if you projected it at $900 a foot that's 30s that's about 36 to 37 million and so I'm trying to figure out how we're gonna spend almost double that in these other ancillary kind of and you don't have to answer that today that's that's my observation so I certainly can be on board with the staff recommendation of expansion I really question how we're gonna spend another 47 million dollars over 10 you but that's something to be decided by future councils but it just just seems a little yes that's just me so we would anticipate that sometime next year we would bring a design and then in the next budget cycle we will adjust that number to wherever it needs to be at that point based on council direction whether it's this council or future council okay all right so we're not we're not voting to approve we've already I think looked at the only thing that's the only thing that's in in the budget for next year is five million dollars for land acquisition design okay thank you thank you mayor thank you and I want to I do want to touch on something because I obviously we're having a conversation about the bond and and everyone knows my feelings there but you raise a good point the what is the value of the covered parking for the vehicles so so one just practically speaking it it extends the life of those vehicles but also when you're dealing with inclement weather and you have employees that are coming in and out of buildings to be able to go into a covered space area get those vehicles prepped and ready to go that's the the other advantage that you have but primarily it helps extend the life of the vehicles and the equipment that are stored underneath those covered areas got it so protects it from just elements right elements wear and tear that that sort of thing sir yeah got it so if we had right hypothetically if DME ran a after-school program for kids to come out and look and they had vans that are parked in the Civic Center parking lot sitting the heat all day if those were covered and in the shade it'd be they'd last longer and wouldn't be as hot for kids to get in and tour DME in the water and all that stuff probably wouldn't be as hot they'd still be hot but yeah there you go okay all right any other questions great thank you very much appreciate it that that takes us to item e ID 2 3 1 5 8 0 receive report hold discussion and give staff direction regarding the potential purchase of real property situated in the Jay Fisher survey abstract number 4 2 1 in the city of Denton there just real quickly I need to set the stage here you know we have said all along that the site that's currently there where the fire station is is when we presented this way back that it would meet the call radius which it does I want to be clear about that but then we were asked to look at another site and I asked Chief Hedges and Frank Dixon to go out and look at it and look at call call radius in future and I particularly wanted them to look at the growth of South Denton and to make sure that we're looking at those trends and growth and egress ingress and the ability to get to our residents and the growing businesses out there so today we're back with you to share with you the information that they have uncovered and just to get your feedback good afternoon mayor City Council Kenneth Hedges fire chief so I have really two parts this presentation someone kind of stop at a natural stopping point for discussions any questions on the potential land purchase and then there's a second component we'll discuss so are we talking about is possibly three acres that is located Teasley north of Ryan Road it's about three quarters mile south of the existing station six property and it's highlighted there on the map so I'm kind of going to this just a little bit I use this slide when we talked about station nine over two years ago and really kind of define on how far department measures success and that's actually measured in response time if you look at the bottom right the red arrow really kind of identifies what we're talking about a response time from the time that alarm is sent to the fire station and do have we have units arriving first on scene very important for us to measure this and then try to stay within industry standards in a PA 1710 which is a picture of the book there is a best practice recommendation so it is not absolute but that's the best guideline we have for response times then over the left the first bullet point really what talked about is a four minute response time so the best we can offer our citizens is to get our first arriving unit on scene within four minutes 90% the time the 90th percentile so when we talk about forming response time I have several graphic representations this one's actually gonna show you the current station six site which is right behind South Branch Library and really kind of want to point out is look out to the west where it really goes down Ryan Road these though Ryan Road and then down south the format response time the current location does not even touch Hickory Creek and Teasley and over to the east at no point can station six get reached 2499 within four minutes so everything's over four minutes I do want to preface this with the fact this is GIS based data do any give credit to my staff this is amazing they create these maps in-house we learned this through the accreditation so no longer do we have to ask GIS development maps well we're able to create this in-house so these maps are designed by current roadway speeds following all the traffic signals so what you see here is the bare minimum so we expect our response would actually be a greater pattern you see here running code 3 able to navigate through control intersections one thing after another so that is the current set if we propose to move fire station six to the land parcel we're talking about this today it would move to the south you see there my biggest point is look at Ryan Road expansion now you're going almost the full length around road to Country Club down to the south on Teasley you cover Hickory Creek really looking also at the East West corridor on future growth and they specifically look to the east on 2499 so now station six from this new site could reach all areas of 2499 within our city limits within four minutes are less and then when I overlay these two so the dark shaded areas the current station six location and then you kind of see in the blue and then the other pink color is would be the nose new site there's very little variation to the north the biggest advantage would be to the south so you extend your four minute response time to the south and if you want to quantify this and we did pull this data is provided by Esri so this really kind of gets down to the numbers so we broke this down by site current location 32 32 Teasley future possible location is Teasley Hunter Creek and this is interesting how you can pull the demographics so this these two maps generated this information so currently we cover a little over 10,000 population in four minute response time that's what we're talking about if we wish to move to Teasley Hunter Creek that 10,000 goes up by 5,000 to almost 16,000 people we cover with it for a minute so that's a positive influence so a total of 5,700 you look at the at-risk population so households with people 65 plus years or older you see that number there increased by 410 households with disabilities and they do pull this information from the US census as well so that's the increase of positive 306 and I added the commercial piece the very bottom number of businesses you'd be positive 58 and the number of employees 1681 so in that difference column every one of those numbers are positive by moving just three-quarters of miles south this is actually a fit to print which would be very similar to station 6 is the distance from the residential to the next slide to show you so this station would be oriented really to the south so I compare it in the fire station does not meet that's respond Teasley Hunter or future growth will actually that location which that's beneficial now we have optical devices so preemption that are on our five goes out down body brain they're gonna turn on to university everybody knows how to stack as they turn their right blinker on going itself by Bray it will start capturing the lights on university so it knows here you can implement this technology that's already on that will require a textile approval we know how easy that is they use a little bit different so currently right now the neighborhood instrument at the edge of station 6 to the new site obviously those neighbors would actually be 240 feet away and our apparatus are designed per NFPA codes to project sample before you turn on to Teasley both are approximately the Teasley Hunter Creek set would provide on Rhine Road Hicker Creek and 2499 this in the proposed bond project or I should bone zone identical design way to the exterior elevations so one design for two different fire state for one 25 million dollar contract instead two separate twelve point five on the build schedule instead of the per repurpose of station ever I'll lead with a question that road and then exit to go to make a left turn to go to Teasley go whichever direction you need to go is that here if you think you can see the cursor radish on the Hunters Creek take a left and then you're on to Teasley right there yeah a the reference at least until we get to a signal like one what do you recommend that still seems a little trick I would I think it'd be discussed frame of the controlled intersection and pre-alert light got it okay afternoon yeah exit straight on to Teasley as you do currently in station six I think the biggest challenge would be actually coordinate with text dot and there's already a curb cut right here in this location we existing so I see very little difference in the orientation north to south station versus flipping this and make as well so I see the benefit of hunter Christian existing okay also mr. mayor if I may yes did did we discuss another for the for the expansion of our further relocation of station six no sir okay I don't I think we talked about that in closed session but but I thought we talked about another another parcel of land I beg your pardon thank you yeah no and this may be it because that's the only thing I recall is the existing footprint and this option which and then giving credit to city manager and and staff for going and kicking the tires and giving it on even honest evaluation I appreciate that means a lot councilmember McGee the mayor Pro Tem thank mr. mayor chief so exit on Hunters Creek is there gonna be an access for possible rear entry on Teasley I think that tent would be the flow into the station out would actually be off of Hunters Creek since that is a city road easier to manipulate so we'd put a flow on the west side of this building into the back of the station and then flow out on response so we still use yes correct we'd everything will be contained within this and three acres is significant size for us to build this station with all the associated employee parking entrance ramps X ramps as well so what I'm getting that is that this is gonna eliminate back and in on hunters right yes okay every new station we will build from this point forward is my intent we will not back unity thank you chief okay councilman Pro Tem yeah this let me lead with a question of process are we going to deliberate direction at the end of both these items or how do you how do you want to run this do you want direction now do you want direction at the end do you want other discussion how do you I mean it's kind of two things and so how do you want to run this well no it's either you like the you like the new site or the existing site that's really the decision for us at any point when it comes right everything beyond that we're not ready to discuss at this phase it's really just a site discussion new or old new or existing and yeah that am I wrong at the end of the presentation as you have four different options and one option is going to be pursue negotiations on this parcel do diligence do not pursue delay so I appreciate that then it's actually exactly to my point and I'm really trying to follow your lead mr. mayor do you want to have that direction at the end or do you and keep this questions and direction just about this piece of property or or and the context would be you know how it fits into the larger scheme of of what council wants to do with this the library the existing building it's and any other comments how do you want to do this and I know I'm spending a lot of time I'm just trying to get to the how you want to run this should I bring up my questions now or at the end yeah no I think you should do now I take chiefs point to this four options but truly that's just spread out for because if you don't if you don't want to move you don't need to negotiate so you can condense those two if you don't want to do anything you don't need to go it's truly two two discussions that then has next steps associated with it but to answer your question yes all the questions now that's great yeah I appreciate think thank you for the clarity so and I guess the the first question is if we did move to the new site what what is the city intend to do with the old site that was the original option I can tell you from from my perspective is our goal to preserve the building that's there and use for flex space for staff in the future and the continue to use the parking lot that there which is still not it's not sufficient for current library patrons but it might might work just perfectly for a satellite site for staffing purposes we have some staff that need office space so we would not tear that building down we would use it okay that appreciate that and then I guess the other thing I just want to be mindful of and I want to be real careful how I say this because this is this is not a criticism and it is that and I won't mention any names on purpose just so that we're clear it's not a criticism the the proposal to look at this new property came around because an individual had it for sale and the in the individual was also on the bond committee and and so I feel like we're toes on the line about an ethical issue and I'm like and I understand we have to weigh stakeholder value taxpayer value but I guess I'm admonishing us to be very careful to avoid any sort of conflicts of interests or ethical concerns and be really open and outright and upfront and maybe extra so because I feel personally like we are right on the line of an ethical concern and maybe it doesn't cross and maybe I'm there's not three more of us that that have that likewise concern but I think numbers wise it does look to me like this property is better so I'm going to say that financially and from a from a taxpayer financial relationship this is this feels like a better option to move here but it does give me pause procedurally how we got to this property so you know my direction is yeah okay but let's be super careful how we do this in the future because I think this is right on the edge of being problematic thank you for your indulgence so but mr. city attorney or city manager well no no let's let's let's let's then just whatever you want to say I don't want to poison the pool but if you know to raise that concern is I think it warrants some level of response to either yeah it just wants a response well yeah there's probably some legal opinion involved in there right I don't think there's necessarily ethics issue at this point our ethics code does not apply to a bond advisory board we do have an ethics policy that relates to our boards of commissions it's very aspirational but doesn't have any teeth really to it either but all that said I'm not really the one that advises counsel or the or the ethics committee necessarily if there is a complaint so I don't want to step too far out there and get in front of the ethics committee if there was a complaint I just don't see it at this point so this is really it's a council discussion should that play into how council goes about discussing this certainly but I don't see at this point any kind of ethical violation as far as I can see okay anyone else councilman Meltzer it does raise the question in mind why are we doing this don't we usually do real estate in closed sessions and and then would it put us in a awkward situation if we have a public commitment to move that direction now the price can do whatever it does a good point and the fact that the bond member raised the issue publicly negates the fact that we the only thing I can't talk to you about in here is a price and the fact that you all as a body on that Saturday when we had our budget meeting talked about it as well it's now a public so the only thing I can't discuss with you is the price because but but I do need to be clear this was not we were not going down this road we were stuck on our site till we actually did our homework and did our due diligence and to be real frank with you it had to be pretty glaring of a difference to be bringing this before you because we were but I was so adamant that we had said this but I'm not going to sacrifice that for what needs to really be done for the for the community so our what we really needed to do and do the right thing was to bring this to you because it does serve our community better one thing I will prompt you to speak to as well is and correct me where I'm wrong but you it was it was councilmember Meltzer at owl that were concerned about the existing library and it the it would absolutely have to come down I mean without me are putting it on the site but there is a there is a possibility with how we'd have to orient the fire station so you can imagine if you tried to plop that down on the site where where the library is it's likely the library would have to come down or and for reuse we looked at it we would have to tear the concrete out and do some different piping underneath it which would not have to be done with just using it for office space so the good news is by moving to another site wherever it may be we're able to preserve that existing library which is valued around some quite a bit of money for for staff purposes in the future and maybe not staff purposes for other purposes that may may benefit the city yeah and I just think that's important to point out because you're it is like all things we do it's a balancing act right and so I appreciate you taking all those different components into consideration Councilman Meltzer and then we'll go to back to you chief sorry yeah I very much appreciate that explanation you know prior to that kind of sticky question my oh I'm sorry now looking for direction that you want to talk about this part all right never mind I'll hold my comments any other questions no comes from what okay chief so I have three more slides that are for actually need decision slides so this is a perfect provided by facilities they actually took existing station 8 footprint which what we're planning for station 6 is actually going to be a little bit larger on square footage as well and just saying it could we reconfigure the site at the South Branch Library a lot of information here I think what I want to focus on is what was provided on the second bullet point right now if this is converted to city building and admin functions it would require 45 parking spots I don't know I don't see Tom here so I don't know how many would be calculate at this point I just want to provide that information and then the third bullet point is really any use as a fire station because how we try to build fire change stations today is really for 50 to 60 year lifespan so if we actually repurposed the South Branch Library facility stated that we need a full underground survey of all utilities and see whether they have a lifespan for 50 plus more years after already being there 15 something or 28 years the core of the building as well so just moving the side around here's one option with it Ashley obviously probably you know not be agreeable is to demolish the current library place the fire station on that exact site with two different curb cuts one existing that would be expanded than a new one on to Teasley and this was just one of a flow pattern that was proposed as well libraries 21,000 square feet roughly we'd only need 5,000 for living space and then the other part of the station apparatus base and the flex base which is the sports that would have to be new at this direction travel you'd need to go north and you'd still be impacting with the bus traffic behind the school and the other little commercial strips are there as well so that's all I have until we get to the requested direction slot okay councilman Meltzer yeah the most persuasive slide is the is the vastly increased for minute response coverage maps that's very compelling that I just want to share an observation that you know that we're that if everybody wants and I'm and I'm supportive by the way and my direction is to initiate to diligence but or well I don't really care much between due diligence and negotiations I think they do go together as the mayor pointed out everybody wants a new building and I just gave direction you know for that with DME but that's you know senior center and and we got burgeoning staff here and everybody wants a new building but the the very encouraging thing is that I read in the responses that were provided for us before coming in I'm looking for the actual line but that there is a facilities master plan in progress due back soon right so yeah so I mean I'm comfortable just because of the persuasive persuasiveness of the impact on public safety which is the main thing when you look at fire department that you know we should be moving forward here but we clearly need to slow down a little see that comprehensive luck you know and kind of sort the simultaneous equations and you know some and you know wasn't Paul Meltzer at al you know as I was responding to the direction from the bond committee that 40 people selected by the council bright gauge people who were concerned about not reusing potentially very good building so so you know if we look at what can be reused what can't be reused how to repurpose where you know but just to look at it comprehensively I think that's really sorely needed so just a comment okay any other questions comments direction that's what thank you what a great presentation thank you and mayor pro tem I understand the how this sort of came up factually and I can understand kind of wondering what's happening I guess my take on it is you know when I look at the Ethics Code and obviously if one of us has an interest in any of that you know we have to recuse and so forth but in some ways based upon the public discussion of this I think this would have come to us anyway as far as this opportunity and I and I really appreciate madam city attorney your response to the closed session question because I really hadn't considered that but you're right I mean a lot of this has already been talked about in public and when I got to looking at this I mean public safety is the number one and that was a great graphic very compelling the next is how do we best use our finances efficiently so we were looking at and people have said hey let's build a new library for 48 million dollars it's 40,000 square feet okay whatever that cost is per foot projected so the building we currently have is 20,000 square feet plus the fire how big is the fire station 36,000 6,000 feet the building itself including the bays and things such as that yes sir so 26,000 square feet of space which would have been rebuilt if it stayed there and the 20,000 square foot building would have been demolished so if we look at we're paying 40 or the proposal is to pay 48 million dollars for a 40,000 square foot building and we're gonna tear down a 20,000 square foot building which is what cut that in half cut that cost per footage in half is 24 million dollars so in essence whatever you know I mean so I think it's also financially prudent to say we're going to buy a piece of land that may save us from having to tear down a 20 a 24 million dollar facility that is only it's built in the 2000s I think so yeah we can we can so and I can appreciate the kind of sensitivity to it I really do and I think that having these open discussions we'll just have to deal with but in the end we make the decision and if somebody wants to price something outside of what we want to pay for it we can just simply say no I mean based upon that but I like the public safety component because it does provide a greater service to most of our citizens it also preserves a 24 million dollar that there's no way we can tear that down that would that would be so financially irresponsible just and then we have a fire station that we can repurpose for whatever if there's ever any time we need that facility to house additional ambulances or additional I mean so it's just it's just a win-win all the way around in my opinion. Okay anyone else Mayor Pro Tem? Oh and then Councilman Berg. Thank you Mr. Mayor. No I think the the information was compelling the cost savings of sister stations are compelling the additional reach is compelling there's a lot of compelling elements this is this is not a denigration I think we can simultaneously keep our mind on two different goals of the city and and it felt like we're you know okay yes this is this is potentially a better fiduciary or fiscal relationship and for the taxpayers I respect that cost savings all that I think we can still keep our eye and make sure that you know this is right on the line but for me it's right on the line maybe not maybe not for anyone else but it's something I feel that we can be mindful of as we go forward to you know we can keep our eye on two different balls at the same time so I gave direction earlier I'm not going to change that direction now I think this is a better play so you know I think hopefully that says something if I'm the one that has the concern yet I am moving forward with the direction I hopefully that sends a message Councilman Burke I am supporting the staff to initiate our due diligence and I generally tend to do that the one that is saying yes let's do it because any amount of time next year two years from now ten years from now the cost is just going to be unbearable but where will we be we'll be at the same place where we were so again if we can get our constituents to understand that this is what you get when you're in a city such as this and we've got to take care of everyone's needs as best possible and I'm hoping that our constituents could understand that we have to do this is because it's the right thing to do to take care of all the new homes and the new businesses and the new people that are coming in so as far as I'm concerned due diligence is always first it's the first thing that you have to think about if we wait another it continue to negotiate the negotiations are not going to get any less it's gonna be more if nothing else so due diligence let's do as much as we can as soon as we can thank you okay thank you anyone I'm counselor reggie do you have your four yes okay all right thank you very much appreciate it so we have one more thing for closed sessions I think it's it's one in the same 1a1b okay okay yeah is that what you heard God chief as well - really involves due diligence first and then you go into contract negotiations this is provided by real estate that kind of the flow so that's what we're really looking for - which is start negotiations yeah one two is combined yeah Councilman Holler and it will first anyone against that as he's laid it out okay completely unrelated does does Geyer High School fall in the the pink area or the blue area or does it fall in the area Geyer would actually fall in the format response time at the new proposed site it would cover thank you yeah got it thank you thanks chief okay that takes us to item F ID 2 3 2 2 1 receive report hold discussion give staff direction on pending City Council request mayor and council Jennifer rainy assistant to the city manager we have one request today we'll quickly speed through the instructions real fast and as you know the staff will introduce the request the council member will have up to two minutes to describe and justify their request since there was a significant amount of text in your response I'll let you dice that up into two minutes and then council members will have the opportunity to voice their priority level at high moderate or low and mayor pro tem we have your item request first yeah all right thank you mr. mayor so this is a too many pitch to have a work session discussion a medium priority to have to form a Charter Amendment Committee I'm not gonna belabor a lot all all the items because those were in except for two were it previously discussed as potential topics I think we have a lot of potential topics some that staff brought forward some that council brought forward some of the citizens have brought forward that we can review at the time of a work session but there's clearly a pent-up desire to have a Charter Amendment Committee from council from citizens and from staff to address various concerns and what ends up in the final product I think we can discuss at that time but I'd like to have that discussion okay so but I just need a process question before I there's obvious things identified put before us what is it that we're considering those things that are put before us or a blank slate just Charter Committee I don't know who answers that what I'm pitching is that would that help okay right so what I'm pitching is that we discuss these items that have been listed as well as any other items that council would like to bring up for that discussion okay all right anyone else council wants yeah and and I don't want to get stuck on the now is this a question or uses your time at my time okay you start me I'm watching I see the big I see the big screen I just didn't want to start you go yeah so I can support the work session and the only reason I'm not gonna banter about your your pitch about specific items because even if we said we're gonna have a blank slate all those items are gonna come back up the main thing I don't want to do is have a time frame like I think some of the staff back up or something said that well this is our timeline I think we need to have a work session about when do we want to have one what do we want to have in it and you can bring up whatever you want to bring up everybody can bring up whatever they want to bring up so I'm open to that to that conversation yeah okay got it well I normally don't do this but this is a it's kind of more sensitive so do you have a ranking of high medium low oh I think the request was medium medium so I mean I don't really know what that means sure when it comes back but I figure it comes back sometime this year next year and then we figure all that so yeah I'm okay with that got it I'm okay Councilman McGee Mr. Mayor mind if I ask a question no go ahead I just I'm not sure what the timeline was you that was referenced by mr. Watts yeah in the backup staff and put forward a that's what they were referring to I'll go ahead and go ahead I'm in favor of this medium program I appreciate this pitch this is a this is long overdue to clean some things up so I'm looking forward to having a work session and that's all being able to contribute our ideas into forming this committee I would also I guess when we have the work session we'll discuss if we move for we would discuss what the committee would look like but I do suggest us some changes from the bond committee so I'm a yes medium priority thank you anyone else Councilman Meltzer yes medium priority okay anyone else Councilor Holland no okay anyone else Councilman Burke I will say yes and making a medium priority okay and then for myself I am a yes for the reason that obviously full disclosure anything that's going to start division I'm not going to support but I hope we can all center around the urgency and need to address a charter that says and this is a this is a painful example it talks about the city manager and only uses he right that's egregious that's absolutely it's it's okay right but it's it needs to be updated so for that and other reasons that I hope we can all find synergy around common-sense adjustments versus anything that would be divisive and I'll say because this council is probably as diverse of it as it's ever been as constituted so to to then start tweaking things for maybes it gives me concern right let's let's we have a something that works and we have obvious issues to fix so thank you all right thanks okay that concludes that I will we'll take a break but I'm gonna read take us into close before the break so the City Council will now at 342 p.m. convene and close meeting to deliberate the closed meeting items set forth on the agenda which includes the following item a ID two three nine six five deliberation regarding personnel matters under Texas government code section five five one dot zero seven four item B ID two three nine six six deliberation regarding personnel matters on the Texas government code five five one dot zero seven four and then please note that we're gonna move F up it'll be the third thing we talked about and that's item F ID two three one five eight seven deliberation regarding certain public power utilities competitive matters and then we'll go down to item what is your item three on your list ID or item C ID two three one four five seven deliberation regarding real property and then we'll go to item D ID two three one five six seven deliberation regarding real property and then item E for the record is not required that was a placeholder just in case we had questions on that item so we'll have one two three four five items to discuss and so let's take a break it's 343 we'll be back at four to get started good evening and welcome to this meeting the Denton City Council today is Tuesday August 15th it is 638 p.m. forgive us for that we had got started an hour early because of how much we had to take on so thank you for your patience that way first thing on the agenda this evening are the pledges to the United States and Texas flag if you can stand with me if you're able okay thank you and then we have one proclamation today that's the national payroll payroll week if you're here for national payroll if you can come down meet me at the podium here and we'll do that presentation okay you want to introduce yourselves and tell us what we're recognizing hi I'm Donna Bush and payroll specialist the city of Denton and we're just here to do payroll Cindy Hartman payroll supervisor and we process the payroll for 2,200 city employees okay and what is that what is that total round numbers what is that so it's about 70% of our budget topping over 5 million pay cycle every every two weeks thank you very much I appreciate it well we have proclamation it reads a proclamation by the mayor of the city of Denton Texas to all whom these presents shall come greetings whereas the American Payroll Association honors nearly 150 million people who work in the United States and the payroll professionals who support the American system and whereas payroll professionals play a key role in maintaining the economic health of Denton by paying into unemployment insurance systems carrying out tax withholding reporting and deposits and whereas payroll departments collectively spend more than 2.4 trillion annually complying with a myriad of federal and state wage and tax laws and whereas payroll professionals meet regularly with federal and state tax officials to continue improving upon compliance even within the ever-changing government procedures I know a little bit about the government and red tape it's rough out there and so now therefore I Gerard Hutsworth mayor of the city of Denton Texas do hereby declare and proclaim the first full week of September to 2023 in which Labor Day falls as national payroll week in the city of Denton and asks us to celebrate all those who work in Denton Texas and those in the payroll profession if we give them a hand here with me just appreciate it and I have these copies for you all right thank y'all very much have a great evening okay that takes us to our presentations for members of the public if we can play the video please the Denton City Council has adopted rules of procedure including a code of conduct that applies to the public as well as council members these rules were enacted to promote an orderly process and to preserve decorum speakers will have four minutes to give a scheduled report and four minutes to give an open mic report a bell will ring when time has expired if the remarks are not concluded by that time the speaker will be asked to stop speaking if the speaker does not cease and a second request is made the mayor may request to have the speaker removed from the chamber speakers should not approach the dais if a speaker has materials for the council please notify the city secretary in advance for scheduled reports the council may initiate discussion or ask questions for non scheduled open mic reports the council may listen however because no notice of the subject of the open mic report has been provided to the public in advance the Texas Open Meetings Act prohibits discussion or decision by the council on non scheduled items as a result the council may only proceed as follows on non scheduled items propose to place the item on a future agenda make a statement of factual policy or a recitation of existing policy speakers are asked to direct all remarks and questions to the council as a whole and not to any individual member please refrain from making abusive personal impertinent profane or slanderous remarks anyone who violates the council rules of procedure may be immediately removed from the chamber thank you in advance copies of the rules of procedure are available from the city secretary great thank you the first speaker that we have two scheduled speakers first being Steven Dillenburg Steven Dillenburg okay our second scheduled speaker is Isabel Cano not real come if you can come on up and give your name and you'll have four minutes good evening mr. mayor city council members I'm here to read a letter that a friend of mine wrote after a visit to Denton like that okay dear Denton City Council I am a former Denton resident having lived there all through the 80s and I am also a graduate of a graduate of TWU 1983 I now reside in Washington State but take a trip to Texas every few years this past April I visited Denton for one week and noticed many changes for the better I thought you might be interested in my observations as seen through the eyes of a former resident and now as a teacher retiree I want you to know that as a former Denton resident I love Denton more than ever here are some positive changes that I have observed recycling wheelchair friendly sidewalk ramps Quaker town recognition with the informative Park sign and also the new name of Quaker Town Park interracial neighbor neighborhoods bicycle friendly streets with nice bike lanes Walker friendly sidewalks Confederate statue removed train public transportation revitalized town square timely response action when issues are reported working on solutions to help the homeless Saturday market senior services museums and lovely historical homes on display for the public some of these changes of course are not recent but still feel new to me coming back as a visitor and I noticed these positive changes more than ever I feel that the town council is forward-thinking progressive and I'm quite sure has a balanced and diverse representation I find Denton to be a friendly and very livable city with positive vibes when I was picked up by uber driver to be taken back to DFW Airport the driver told me that he was a 30-year Denton resident who didn't like Denton he loved Denton thank you for listening and I'll be back sincerely Janice Olson okay well thank you very much I appreciate that feedback thank you uh-huh thank you for being here that takes us to our unscheduled reports obviously had seven cards one won't we won't reach we own there's only seven spaces available I'll call those in order it's in order they were given to me Ned Woodbridge if you can come down and give your name you'll have four minutes thank you council okay sure they'll switch to that to the there you go oops thank you good evening I'm Ned Woodbridge 3596 Hartley Field Road Den as a member of the steering committee of the Northeast and area plan I am unfortunately was out of town when for the meeting on August 1st and want to make some comments on the area plan and what we should do we were told at the very outset this would be process would be a simply refinement of the 2040 comprehensive plan we were told that the purpose of the plan is and I quote from your website to create a community-based vision for the long-term success of each respective area the community has requested again and again that the city simply follow the Denton 2040 plan Denton 2040 plan so what does the 2040 plan actually say as to the rural fringe that we're talking about that Northeast Denton constitutes and I'm going to read it so unfortunately I have to lean over here as much of Denton is characterized as rural and agricultural land that possesses a character of Denton's past and natural environment that is cherished conservation development is recommended as the primary means of managing the interface of the developed and undeveloped land conservation development is an approach to the design of rural residential subdivisions which is highly suited to agricultural fringe areas where the retention of rural character and open space is desired now let me jump to the to the comments of what we should be doing in the direction of the city protect rural character and scenic open space in the city's edge to promote the achievement of the preferred growth concept land preservation plan in the flume promote conservation development in rural areas with permanent protected open space expand the network of project protected rural open space including flood plains stream corridors through open space conservation easements and through land dedications etc so then what does the the flume actually say on the map you see here I make finger on it you'll see that that for by and large the identified most of the areas are green which means rural areas only a very small portion of them along the 288 loop here that city and right here the city along FM 428 or as low residential so this is more akin to the first business-as-usual scenario so why is rural zoning critically important to the city this is this area of Northeast Denton was scored by cogs as the most ecologically important area not only in Denton but the entire 12 County cogs region this is a critical asset to be preserved there are many other areas on the west side of town that are far less ecologically important and available for the city to build out look there for the growth I'm out of time so I need to jump right to what the community wants and recommends we emphatically request that you change the direction given to city staff on August 1st that calls for denser development of Northeast Denton and the fund provides instead follow the vision statement approved by the steering committee based on community input and which is vastly different than the direction given stick to the dictates of the comprehensive plan thank you very much I appreciate it okay the rest is there yes sir I have that we have the copies thank you very much and the next speaker is Anne Beckman you can give your if you can give your name you'll have four minutes hello my name is Anne Beckman I'm a resident of Hartley Field Road for 23 years now I have lost a lot of sleep since the last City Council meeting on August 1st on the Northeast Denton area plan in that meeting very quickly it seemed to me that some City Council members didn't care about community wishes and chose to ignore concerns that went against a certain agenda I saw a city consultant that was paid a lot of money in order to devise a biased and misleading presentation and then a hasty vote that led to majority of City Council choosing an option that is completely against the steering committee's vision statement for sustainability preservation of rural character and ecological conservation I left highly disappointed in my city and stress for the future of this area and all of Denton if this is how decisions are made I speak for not only me but for my parents and other people who have spent over 20 to 50 years here building their forever homes little by little creating a place that their children and grandchildren can enjoy it safely and have peace I speak for new families who have just recently purchased a home in the area in hopes to give their children the life that I had growing up here ruralness a quietness a stillness a piece that is unique to this area there is no other place like it in Denton I speak for the people who had bought homes here and then sold for fear of development because that is not what they envisioned for their life I speak for those that are considering moving from a place that they have called home for so long because their city is not protecting them if you go through with this development you will not only destroy crucial habitat for wildlife including bald eagles river otters and monarch butterflies to name a few you will also be destroying the peace of the residents in the area and reducing their quality of life immensely and you will rob all of Denton of the opportunity to have public green space a refuge away from the rest of the city in their busy lives a break from the traffic and the noise and environmental learning opportunities for themselves and for their children we all have a responsibility as humans to respect our planet and to know it personally by spending time in nature though each development makes that vital human and nature connection that much harder to attain but when we are able to experience it we realize that nature isn't just nice it's not just pretty but it's healing and it's a human right to have access to I urge you mayor and City Council to reevaluate your definition of the greater good and think quality over quantity think about the lives of people that already reside here think about the lives of people that would benefit from public green space maybe that includes you and your family and think about how you can better didn't not only how you can increase tax revenue and Orion and non-bond I encourage you to pause and not think about profits for a minute put yourselves in the shoes of the community and other communities as well as well as the wildlife species in these areas and think about the lives you will forcefully change with development to quote the late John Muir advocate for the preservation of wilderness and every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks and now I will briefly mention the ecological implications in a presentation made by Kirby Marceau an ecologist from the area okay this map as well as most of the presentation was sourced from the city of Ditton's website the map shows the highly ecologically sensitive study area and habitat type the main thing I want to point out in this map is that much of the area according to the legend has not been assessed or assessment has expired the riparian habitat in this area is the land and vegetation that borders rivers and creeks it provides natural flood control prevents erosion cleans our drinking water and is crucial to federally endangered and threatened migratory bird species and the floodplain habitat is the land next to rivers or creeks that floods and storms it reduces pollution and lessens the impact of severe weather okay please do what didn't publicly promotes and protect these environments and species thank you very much for your time I appreciate it Bridget Marshall Bridget Bridget Marshall Marshall pardon me if you can give your name you'll have four minutes good evening my name is Bridget Marshall I live at 35 39 pine trail here in Denton the lack of integrity with the area plan process is extremely disappointing it has not been a refinement of the Denton 2040 comprehensive plan as we were repeatedly told by the consultants and city staff instead it is an expensive attempt to circumvent the current zoning laws and the comprehensive plan for the benefit of investors and developers this is appalling this was even more blatantly apparent at the last joint steering committee meeting with the consultants proposed plan that did not incorporate the steering committee's vision statement which I will partially quote our vision for Northeast Denton is to maintain a sustainable community that prioritizes environmental preservation preservation of historic spaces healthy recreation and the role character of the area we are committed to providing rural housing two to five acre lots and development options that are consistent with the standards outlined in the 2040 comprehensive plan unquote the Northeast in area is a unique asset to the city of Denton that is unlike anywhere else in Denton it is worth protecting as a legacy for all Denton residents and future generations to enjoy NCT COG's regional ecosystem framework rates at the most sensitive and and in a 12-county region according to the opportunity Conservation Trust the city of Denton adopted the countywide Denton County greenbelt plan to implement appropriate strategies in our community to guide the preservation of green belts and the adjacent natural areas within the watersheds of our local lakes a key source of the city's drinking water the proposed balancing act area plan goes against the city's adopted greenbelt plan the community's wishes and the steering committee's vision statement the greenbelt plan states that preserving the natural areas also known as green belts and ESA's including floodplains creek streams riparian areas and wetlands is vital to having dependable clean drinking water for our communities farm animals and wildlife as water flows across the land these green belts help filter out pollutants before the water enters the creeks and lakes protecting the quality of water of our water supply lakes green belts are also an important buffer during flood events preserving open space including farm and ranch land is a key strategy to reduce flooding preserving green belts is a vital importance for the wide variety of wildlife that exists here intense development will negatively impact the wildlife corridors and habitats green belts also provide an excellent opportunity to enhance the quality of life for residents by providing parks and hiking biking and equestrian trails for recreation according to the opportunity conservation trust it is much more cost-effective to to protect green belts and string corridors up front now rather than restore them after they had been lost to development once they are gone they're gone forever we all should be looking at the northeast in area with a different lens it should be developed with a lighter footprint and not with multifamily higher density housing and retail centers which encourage urban sprawl it took visionaries to create the 843 acre Central Park in New York City in the 1850s which coincidentally is about the same size as the former Carter wrench look at the kind of legacy they left for the residents for those future residents what kind of legacy do you want to leave for Denton's residents keep to the 2040 comprehensive plan in plumb thank you that's good dr. Katherine Katherine and I don't want to mispronounce the last name L A N D D E C K there you go thank you I'm Katherine Landek and I live on Ferris Road I am an optimist I believe people are basically good I have always believed government especially local government serves the people I believe that if enough people spoke up the city staff and the City Council would listen the past eight months of the Northeast Denton area plan process have made me doubt these things the people of Denton have spoken clearly and loudly about what they want for this area we wear red shirts today to represent the red dots we use to show you what we did not want we represent every district in the city and the ETJ your actions two weeks ago were evidence that your priorities are with large out-of-town investors and developers rather than the people you swore to serve on May 30th the Northeast Denton area plan steering committee a committee of volunteers chosen by the consultant and city staff and approved by you voted to give shy Bruce the consultant hired by the city to develop the area plan direction with the following vision statement our vision for Northeast Denton is to maintain a sustainable community that prioritizes environmental preservation preservation of historic spaces healthy recreation and the rural character of the area we are committed to providing rural housing 2 to 5 acre lots and development options that are consistent with the standards outlined in the 2040 comprehensive plan to quote the community vision statement in the Denton comprehensive plan regarding the rural fringe in which Northeast Denton sits quote in our rural fringe areas of the city and the extraterritorial jurisdiction we see conservation development which retains rural character protects open space and greenways that's in the vision statement our vision continues our vision recognizes the special and sensitive environmental realities of Northeast Denton including the invaluable green belt and crucial watershed it recognizes the historic significance of Hartley Field and aims to preserve and highlight the airfield it recognizes the way Northeast Denton is valued by people across Denton as a rural natural space free of traffic and available for recreation such as biking walking horseback riding and enjoyment of quiet nature the Northeast Denton is a special place for all of Denton to enjoy that's the vision statement that the committee that you all appointed came up with the direction you gave the consultant as she designs the area plan is the opposite of this vision instead you have provided a runaround of the rezoning process and are drastically changing the nature of any area in this area that the city controls shy roost the consultant who presented those options to you completely ignored the vision statement and instead in a boldly biased style presented you with the developers dream plan by listening to the wishes of land investors and developers instead of the people of Denton you are agreeing with roost who has said zoning doesn't matter and that the city's job is to make sure developers make money I would argue that the job of the city of Denton and the sworn duty of the members of the City Council is to listen to the people of Denton we have an opportunity here in Northeast Denton we have a space that is rural yet close environmentally sensitive yet accessible we have a chance to create a legacy for future generations of North Texans to enjoy restore the faith of the people of Denton in the process and in you pause the area plan process long enough to explore options besides more expensive houses more apartments more traffic let us explore instead clean air clean water trees and nature don't make fools of the optimists and believers join us and dream big so we can do things together thank you very much Larry white you can come down give your name you have four minutes my name is Larry white I live at 3217 Deerfield Drive in Denton first of all I want to acknowledge and thank every one of you for the time and effort that you put into your jobs I've come to realize over the last year how much time you put into this and I know that just the part that we're talking about takes up an enormous part of your time and we're just a little bit of that effort so regardless what happens I want to thank you for the job that you're doing here please understand that I have a whole list of things that I was going to talk to you guys about it's all been said but I want you to look out over this sea red over here every one of us believes the same thing and we keep showing up time after time after time we are not going away we are going to make a difference in here when you people ran for election the last time you swore to us you were going to listen to your constituents you are not doing that we are going to hold you accountable it doesn't take more than a few hundred votes to sway elections on each council race we have more than enough people to take care of that if you're not going to listen to what your consistent constituents are telling you we have the votes we have the money to contribute to get the people elected that you're going to do the job and quit listening to these developers and making money for them we are tired of this at the very end of the good session on August 1st one of the comments made was these are old people they're not going to be here when the time counts they're going to be gone that may or not may not be true we're not fighting for us we're fighting for our children we're fighting for our grandchildren and for your children and grandchildren please listen to us if you don't we'll find people who are going to do that look at everybody out here we've been here over and over and over again we are not going away thank you thank you okay Christine break if you can come down and give your name you'll have four minutes sure though if we can get the overhead please thank you all right I hope everybody can see that well my name is Christine Bray I learned this morning that I did not have any red items of clothing that fit me anymore I had outgrown them between the last time I tried them on but I wanted to talk a little bit about the dynamics that are pushing development into Northeast end so first up it's been a decades-long economic program in Texas to bring in growth to bring in growth from other states it's not Denton's fault that we are growing in population that is a state issue it's just the water we're swimming in so as you can see Texas population has roughly doubled since the 80s that has to go somewhere right DFW population has also done the same thing it's approaching about 7 million 8 million people right now sorry 7 million people when we talk about losing rural character this is a little bit what it looks like this is a satellite scan of DFW in 1985 you can see Denton up in that north east or northwest corner and here's what it looked like in 2022 1985 2022 we have lost a lot of rural spaces in that time there is also an ongoing housing crisis as unfortunately this is a little bit blurry but there was more housing built from 1950 to 1959 than there was from 2010 to 2020 when the nation had nearly double as many people my generation is having a hard time finding housing I know so many people who move out of here because there's not space to start a family because they can no longer afford rent our city is losing its artists right people who may want to work 30 hours a week and then make art that they love with another 20 but they can't afford to do that anymore so one thing that cities have done in order to slow rent growth and the environmental destruction of their rural spaces is to get rid of suburban style zoning suburban style zoning is a style of zoning that requires large houses on large lots that take up lots of space so Minneapolis abolished suburban style zoning and its rent growth since 2017 has been just 1% compared with 31% in the u.s. overall that reflects somewhere around Dennis growth this has been a massive success in terms of people being able to stay in the neighborhoods in the homes that they grew up in unfortunately our zoning does not allow any sort of rural village concept I think which is what the planning planners were talking about right we don't have any zoning that enables that that is not really something that you can do under our current setting code Europe is doing it we aren't here's what it looks like in den right priced out is rents or advocates fear housing stability and prices so how do we keep our rural areas rural while still accounting for the growth and population that is coming from state policy top-down right nothing we can do about it here's an image of Denton that black line is the loop I have blocked out in red all of the areas where it is illegal to build apartments my neighborhood is that area right north of UNT and my neighborhood is an excellent place for the students who want to come to UNT we have 40,000 students at UNT and they all want to live right by it but it is illegal to build the kind of housing that they might use and that is why we are seeing sprawl out towards our rural areas because it is not legal to build for the people who are coming in our downtown core the places where we already have cement we don't need to put cement down to house people we can do it in the areas that are blotted out in red in the inner loop right unfortunately our zoning does not allow us which is why we are seeing this push towards the edges so in conclusion if we want to save our rural space we have to allow dense housing and we should allow it in the places where it is needed thank you okay that takes us to our consent agenda I'll take a motion but for items B and A oh mayor pro tem I move approval except for items of the consent agenda accepting items B and AO okay councilmember McGee I will second motion by mayor pro tem second by councilmember McGee any questions discussion seeing none let's fold on the screen that passes 7-0 takes us to item B which is ID 23066 consider nomination appointees of the city of Denton boards commissions and committees board of ethics etc my question is do I need to have to because it's a slate right yeah and there's and then so I need to do vote on a slate and then if anyone's a separate vote probably the cleanest way to do it yeah okay so councilman watch you you pull this I see you the movement I'm just gonna ask that you respect that that process and what is the process the process is we'll vote on all but the the okay ethics board that's the that's the motion before us right and then we'll take up that one individually thank you so mayor pro tem okay so I just want to be careful I'll motion to approve the item B but let me know but I need to a motion yeah but for the but for the ethics board okay that one that vote has been pulled okay I move approval of the nomination list for the various boards and commissions but for the ethics board council mount sir actually I'm just taking a quick look to see if there's only there there are two nominees related to Board of Ethics is that what you wanted to know so the name so it's Dave Zoltner's is the vote that's separate so if you want to amend your motion to say that appointment then that'll give you an opportunity second thank you for that I appreciate the clarification so just so I understand you want to make an exception just for the nomination of Dave Zoltner and everything else as described that is correct okay then then I move approval of all the nominations as presented in consent item B except for the nomination of Dave Zoltner councilman Meltzer I second okay we have motion and second any discussion councilman Holland state your point of order check that name please check the Dave dr. Dave Zoltner dr. David David yeah I beg your pardon thank you uh-huh thank you motion by mayor pro temp second by councilman meltzer any other discussion this photo on screen that passes 7-0 takes us to councilman Watts for a motion no I I don't have we got a separate vote on that right that's right yeah we're to the motion oh got it we got to do in the partner an affirmative right I'm tracking with you yeah I just wanted to give you the floor that was your request I didn't need to comment yeah mayor pro temp I move approval of the nomination of dr. David Zoltner to the Board of Ethics councilman McGee second okay motion by mayor pro temp second by council McGee discussion I do because I want to be transparent I'm not going to support this and here's the reason why in 2019 and these are factual correct dr. Zoltner was on the ethics board and was resigned then he was reappointed at some point and on let me get the date so that I have it factually correct bear with me just don't want to get this wrong so that was an August 2019 the resignation or no was removed better said was removed for from the board 2019 then in an email that was sent to me and forwarded to all the other council members this was dated January 13th of this year that you all would have received it and it was another resignation from the Board of Ethics and so with that there's there's a concern that and amongst the other statements that I won't quote that said that basically said he doesn't support the ethics ordinance as written and so it's hard for me to place someone on a board that says they disagree with the fundamental practice of that board so that is why I'm not going to support this nomination I I do want to note my concerns over the mold the removal the resignation and I think there's been a couple of resonations I don't have the second one so forgive me for not being having that specific date to provide but that those are my concerns that's why I can't support this nomination any other discussion seeing none let's vote on the screen and that passes five to two takes us to our first public hearing I do believe mr. mayor oh a oh pardon me yeah takes us to a oh oh that's because I have to do that twice got it this is ID 2 3 1 4 2 4 consider appointing a nominating committee to recommend appointees to serve on the Economic Development Partnership Board all right good evening Wayne Emerson director of Economic Development today's objectives we're going to appoint a nominating committee to recommend nominees to serve on the Economic Development Partnership Board or the EDP the the ordinance establishing the EDP board requires the City Council to appoint three people to serve on the EDP be nominating committee the nominating committee then solicits nominations contacts nominees confirms eligibility and willingness to serve and presents a slate of appointees for the City Council's consideration the nominating committee consists of two City Council members one member of the Denton Chamber of Commerce the Denton Chamber has already nominated Jill Jester for your consideration and for clarification nominating committee members are qualified to serve on the EDP board so for your consideration City Council please select and appoint two council members along with the chamber representative Jill Jester to the nominating committee who currently serves on it currently or lasts for fiscal year 23 was yourself and councilmember bird okay so I would put those yes yeah I would put those three as listed that's my motion mayor pro tem yes the the same the same slot the same makeup of the board so that's Jill Jester counseling bird myself counselor watts wait yeah are you were you making a motion so you need to ask for a second yeah yes but there's people in line to speak so I was gonna address that I'll get the second either along the way well that that is why I withdrew because I didn't realize that we were not going straight to a motion all right I made the motion yeah I thought you were through because you didn't want to speak or didn't want a second which is that's what I read into that and so I went to the next person that was on their screen counselor what just as a point of order are we waiting for a second yes there will need to be a second before we vote but I'm fine with taking comments it's fine it'll come or won't but I'm not trying to be churlish okay there's okay there's okay Robert's Rules of Order and then I hope that we're following them right well I'm certain we're okay it's not that big of a deal but it to to keep the peace is there a second I'll second thank you very much now we have a motion and a second we okay yes sir okay counselor watts well and it was just really more clarification because I was reading the the question and answers and I think it was a question you had mayor pro tem about AO or a comment in fact let me and so I just wanted to understand what you were what you were asking there because I couldn't quite get it but in in the handout that we got you had stated in AO your question was can this item be in consent blah blah it's my understanding that other than board member Jill gesture the council's positions haven't been nominated correct is that not required to be an individual consideration that's process matter and then you said if advanced nominations are being requested then I nominate Paul Meltzer and Brian Beck and in parentheses you have one EDP board member and one non-member so was that referring to what we're doing here tonight as far as the two members is that is that what that was referring to mr. mayor yes good yeah that I we had a confusing process okay if they wanted advanced nominations like we do for boards and commissions I was throwing to out if we were going to do nominations from the dais then which the mayor just did then then I'm I'm happy to to entertain that process and okay I just thank you I appreciate that thank you that was all mayor okay thank you you you're here to speak mayor pro tem all right you you don't wish to speak there you go okay any other comments questions seeing none we have a motion by myself second by a councilman watts let's vote on the screen that passes 7-0 takes us to our public hearings first is item a a ESA 2 2 0 0 0 hold public hearing consider adoption of ordinance of the city of Denton Texas approving an alternative environmentally sensitive area plan for a site general located south of us 380 approximately 1,650 feet west of intersection of us 380 and Northwestern Boulevard in the city of Denton mayor I'm sorry mayor forgot to alert you I'm gonna recuse myself I filled out the proper forms with legal it's not because of any of the enumerated conflict of interest it's just the potential of a future business relationship with the consultant so I just wanted to recuse myself I don't think I was quite required to by the board about the ethics code but I want to do that in all abundance of caution okay yeah for this item for just this item only that's perfect okay thank you and okay got it so let the record reflect that councilman watts has recused himself I'll open the public hearing and turn it over to mayor council members Christy Upton and I will be presenting alternative ESA plan for date and crossing phase three the sites is a approximately can you adjust a microphone for me please and thank you sure so this is a site that has some wetlands that are located within and adjacent to a floodplain approval of this project are herbaceous in nature they mitigate is to excavate the wetland material to them and they will be at a growth of that wetland and hope to and not hope to the goal is to achieve 60 there were notifications that were made commend approval of this thank you mr. mayor I understand it well we're essentially playing channel way correct and what's the condition of the new percated wetland code does not regulate how the hydrology affects these environmentally sensitive areas so that is an answer to the waterway by other than remaining on the land that's generally I think it's a it's a good plan educate me if we have the knowledge and that is do we do expect this to dry out and I mean it's dry right now because of these in terrible temperatures but we put it this way for some period of time and as they have been then and they were identified years ago so planning for and so we should expect okay we have the applicant I am happy to be here with you this is when I'm finished with my presentation I do want to just talk about a little bit what this project is intended to do and some of the positive things that will come from it we are from it is within proximity to to the Peterbilt plant today element of this site is to consolidate that are in Denton today that are current store new Peterbilt cabs that are coming off of the line so roughly 180 Peterbilt cabs come off the line daily and those are then and stacked and then transported by active transportation service to Peterbilt this particular site is kind of in the middle of an industrial area that will also fairly right off of I-35W I do want to go a little bit into the site characteristics but I will be brief and this is currently zoned light industrial and there's a significant as you can see here the majority of there are a handful that are just to the wedding the removal and relocation of those small little wetland areas this site also has significant encumbrance of gas wells and pipelines on site as a lie zoning and what it is surround of the site overall is 65% our impervious surface of the site and we're only proposing a 15,000 square foot building approximately on you know a 60 plus acre site stored there's no idling no manufacturing they'll simply be stacked and then transported out of the site at the appropriate our alternative ESA plan we are proposing to remove and relocate point one nine acres and to expand into a location identified in purple here that is point three three six acres as we covered it is closer to the creek and we also worked very hard with city staff to identify an area where we could do some refine excavating and depressions that minimize the impact overall and so the the funny shape is to really avoid existing trees and try to minimize the impact of what's taking place inside the floodplain area this is a public hearing so we did mail a letter to our surrounding property owners we didn't host a neighborhood meeting given the location but we did mail a letter and invite inquiries and I received two phone calls one of which was a property owner to the north of us who was hoping we were making some changes that would alleviate some of the floodplain impact on their existing site the other had a number of questions but never disclosed if they were a neighbor or the nature of those questions but we did make ourselves available to the neighborhood and that is all I have I'm gonna invite Justin up here to say a few words and then I'm happy to answer any questions thank you okay good evening I just want to say that I appreciate this opportunity to allow active to grow along with Peterbilt thank you okay thank you and is it is it so about 187 a day is that still with their own on pace for yes that's outstanding it's good stuff okay questions for the applicant or this is a public hearing so anyone that wants to speak and come down and speak and just fill out a card afterwards so any speakers seeing none I'll close a public hearing I'll take a motion of questions from staff mayor pro tem I'm gonna move approval I think that the staff and the applicant have done a good job of trying to mitigate harms and I really appreciate that in especially in this industrial area so I appreciate the efforts that they went to so I move approval counselor McGee since the only truck driver on council couldn't move approval for this I guess I will have to second okay motion by mayor pretend pet back second by counselor McGee any other discussion that's photo screen and that passes six zero thank you takes us to item B CA two three zero zero zero one a hold a public hearing consider adoption of ordinance of the city of Denton Texas regarding a comprehensive plan amendment on approximately 24 acres from Business Center future land use designation to moderate residential future land use approximately 250 feet north of Russell Newman Boulevard in the city of Denton and I will open the public hearing and for those we have a speaker that I'm going to lead with for those that aren't aware I am aware we received an email from one of the P&Z commissioners having concern wanting to revisit this prod this project that was brought forward so I'm gonna defer to him Commissioner Villarreal if you can come up and give your name I want to give you an opportunity to update us on what we need to know or what what you would yeah just what you need us to know thank you mayor my name is Jordan Villarreal 5500 Delray Drive Denton 76208 on the planning and zoning Commissioner for place for I submitted my motion to reconsider the three items related to the project early on Monday August 14th less than five days since the planning and zoning vote on these items I was told by city staff this afternoon that I should come today to convey my motion when I was reviewing material for the Mayhill Road multifamily project I had some concerns about several items including one the city's own financial tool indicating it would be a net loss for the city upwards of eight million dollars the impact on green spaces adherence to the city's 2040 comprehensive plan and the potential security issues for a high density use near a federal facility like FEMA I was conflicted at the time but reluctantly voted I the more I thought back on these concerns the more I believe I had made the wrong decision as it had not even been one week since the vote I contact the staff and asked him to reconsider this item I humbly request the council remand this back to PNZ and allow us to vote on the reconsideration of the pre-agenda items related to this project we owe it to the city and to all Dentonites to do our due diligence thank you for this time got it yeah and and I wanted to for those of a track along and for you to know Commissioner Villarreal the reason to move forward when it was posted and noticed but I think it's important that we hear these things and have those addressed and almost expedite this conversation versus the process if you don't know would be for it to be go back to PNZ it would have to then be a meeting there to decide if it is remanded back then if the answer is yes you have to re-notice again have that again so you're talking at least a month maybe month and a half before that can be heard versus we can take it up today and make a decision today and and so it almost expedites your concerns by by in reality it expedites your concerns instead of waiting a month to get to a resolution that would still have to come to this body we can take it up right now and so just trying to move this faster get a decision get a resolution to the applicant faster is the goal so that being said open the floor for but but I do want to confirm that these are things that were known when PNZ took them up just upon further deliberation thought that yes after further deliberation consideration listening to the community okay listening to community after you voted that's right okay got it and so any questions here at the dais for Commissioner Villarreal Councilman Meltzer yeah actually requested to speak before I heard the questions for mr. Villarreal I have a question for council just is that actually the process I mean if there's a request for reconsideration doesn't that suggest that they have to go through that process before it comes back to us admittedly a very unique situation which I don't think we've dealt with before as a City Council and there's no rules specifically on it so just looking at general principles generally yes PNZ has the ability to reconsider however council also has the ability and has jurisdiction over a case once PNZ makes a recommendation which wrap we're in this unique scenario where there's a council meeting before the subsequent PNZ meeting where they would have to take up the PNZ consideration under Robert rules that be considered an intervening event where you lose authority if something like this happens where council actually takes up the matter and votes on it they would lose the authority to go back and short due process after hearing the reconsideration if you would entertain a motion at this time mayor I would move to postpone this item as considered reconsideration heard the matter if they choose I noted but I'm not gonna take them before that we take up motions so if you have other thoughts or but I'm gonna let other people speak and then we'll come I'll come back to you know I'm clear thank you mayor one or my wish is to have this item reconsider so we can have that conversation and see what the PNZ comes to you after another conversation I would have voted opposite of so I'm clear we're we're gonna I have not accepted the the motion you still have the floor okay thank you miss me right I I wish someone on the floor I think probably to weigh in on the parliamentary procedure if he would please I guess to educate you on the parliamentary procedure yeah if you're and if we're not going to then I feel compelled to appeal back along with me and councilman Meltzer correct me what I'm I'm I'm just a bit confused as what is it a hole as to why you are set this but I do other than what I see there you know in a more simplistic this until about 1 p.m. or noon today okay once again right is planning the zoning commissioners to motion for reconsideration okay I'd be eligible to scene to ensure that y'all have a full outlook as to why these couple motions here Commission really well so as I understand the reason you want reservations about you didn't get a chance to void so heard this past week yes before I I know it's not I guess madam city manager I know it's not always the case but it's just one usually we usually we try to have a gap so there's commissioner being here before us is that right he did he did do an email I believe to staff if I'm not mistaken or a phone call better to do this publicly let him share what his concerns were so everyone can hear that if I may one more question certainly so this body voted to take for the applicant so do any any speculative time if we don't know it's okay I'm just on the dates we have a council meet or we would make we would make notice to go to a subsequent job sometime in October I don't know if we'd make this up being in September delay at PNC we we had postponed one meets are tied together okay so again it was just an unusual set us thank you Scott thank you mr. mayor thank you I'm going to try to be as Hillary how you talk about hullabaloo down here for this hullabaloo you stated there the issues in your mind and I respect the process of we've got motions for reconsideration the problem is this got set on the council agenda on friday at five o'clock on monday afternoon once the city council it's I mean we had to we had to publish this did we not for public hearing okay so I understand it I understand wanting to reconsider what you decided I guess I'm just a little disappointed that instead of coming in here and saying hey this is an unusual circuit it's unusual I don't think PNC has ever had a motion reconsider which doesn't mean you can't do it it's not okay they weren't already posted on the so you're familiar with that you're familiar with the motion to reconsider and and it's timing and all that and you're familiar that once y'all decide something it can get posted on a city council agenda so I don't I mean if we're talking about this coming back literally in two months to council is what I just heard and so I'm not going to support a motion to the latest but I will respect the council's choice in that if that's what the council wants to do I think that we need to find a way this is scar tissue that I always refer to we need to change our rules that if there's going to be a motion to reconsider by the planning and zoning commission we can respect that but if it gets posted on a council agenda before that motion to reconsider is made I don't think it should be recognized that's not our rule right now however if we really wanted to go by the rule of the code and Mac you can correct me if I'm wrong because you said this is sort of an intervening act so you're right you filed a valid motion to reconsider so on the next PNC meeting it could be heard unless now that it's posted on the council agenda and we take it up and we make a final decision on it well then the issue becomes moot is that correct so we could follow the process but I think the mayor has been accommodating to give this council an opportunity to make a decision on your request and I know you didn't want to be down here but I'm glad you are here I'm glad you decided to come down here and share with us your thoughts I wish you didn't perceive it as a hullabaloo situation this is part of the process so those are all my comments I will not be supporting a motion to move it to postpone this especially if it's going to take two months given the factual circumstances simply because if we can we have the mr. city attorney do we have the right based upon all the code even the motion reconsider to hear this because it was posted on our agenda correct you have jurisdiction once PNC made the recommendation it was too thank you mayor that's it if I may comment on that certainly so I find it interesting that the main concern today is the delay if there was a reconsideration no matter if it was posted or not there would have been a same amount of days in between there would have been the same delay whether or not it was posted and on council's agenda or if I submitted this reconsideration and have not been posted on council's agenda there would still be that delay because we would still have to retake the consideration up and then we would still have to have that second vote yeah no no no I do want you to respond but but I Commissioner Villarreal I will take just a little bit of a different look at it and I'm surprised that this body is is gonna make a motion to send it back down because here's you know when it goes back down it's coming right back up so why don't we make a decision today that that's what I don't understand I don't understand the delay to get direction from a body that we can either choose to accept or not every week every meeting we have every recommendation you have we have the authority and the decision making authority to just say okay yes we agree and that's what staff and that's everything and so why not instead of making a motion to send it back down to the ladies people for two months how about we as elected officials put on our big boy pants and make a decision you know it just let's make a decision today and either we tell them no or we tell them yes and you can advocate and you have your resolution today that's what I'm not making the connection with why the desire for the delay not not that there is a delay but then furthermore I'll just say this I take no issue with with what you've said thus far but for the two things you said of transparency and something that's great but the the issue then the other thing is because those aren't accounted for and those are your use as possible and again I don't understand why this body is gonna entertain gonna decide anyway we need to make a decision today that's the most efficient way notice or multiple meetings or any get the motion well that truncates discussion not uncomfortable speaking and look into that further provide some council members potentially in the implications that would be that is correct because of who's requesting it in that relationship or you know legal memo reclosed I don't there that says I was concerned and the the city manager mentioned consider I just and I haven't heard why so afterwards including the city's own fighter to show you we're gonna lose has to the city's 2040 comprehensive plan and finally the boat someone whoever was in that meeting with FEMA if you may or may not have come out in the presentation I don't know you can speak to that so if you can give your name and then had a private FEMA reached up and had a two-hour meeting with FEMA and discussed security concern behind so we had a very extensive meetings matter of fact there was a member of FEMA here also so we've gone through the due process and we've been working on this project over a year we've done our yes so we've done a bit have we're not not required to have we feel like I understand the concern there was some maybe not and brought up a concern considering the amount of money and time that these projects take and yes thank you mayor process as we go along this is an usual procedure but it you know the fact that that creates a little room to do something that isn't really the process I don't think that should govern I'm absolutely conscious of the impact called meetings to move things along faster I imagine PNC has that as well I also don't feel it's up to council to decide why a commissioner moves for reconsideration that's a tool available to commissioners we've heard that it's been twice and Commissioner Real's term so it's for PNC to vote whether they want I will second and I'll hold for discussion I didn't hear a motion but am I so if you'd like me to restate I would map it to yes so postpone items BC and D the process of reconsideration by PNC has concluded and and incidentally that in no way cuts off the opportunity to do special-call meetings to get this whole thing moving faster okay councilmember McGee I will I'll second the motion and I'll hold for discussion okay discussion councilor Watts your city attorney I mean what I heard councilmember Meltzer says that we're doing something outside of our process I disagree with that I mean we can recognize the motion to reconsider with the Planning and Zoning Commission which is not this body is that correct I mean we can say he wants a motion to reconsider but we have that came after we I'm gonna just try to put it in jurisdictional terms sure where we we obtained jurisdiction for that from the posting on the agenda so there's nothing that says a motion to reconsider from the Planning and Zoning Commission means that those items automatically get pulled from the City Council agenda I mean this has never happened before right all right but I don't know if I agree with the assessment that somehow we're trying a different process because if we really follow the process the City Council posted an agenda it was posted for public hearing we are here moving through the agenda somebody placed a motion to reconsider with the Planning and Zoning Commission a commissioner on Monday afternoon or Monday morning the day before the meeting three days after our legally required posting so unfortunately you do have sort of a hierarchy of jurisdictional of jurisdictions so we can still say hey you can put it on a motion reconsider on Planning and Zoning but we still also have the right to hear it here on City Council so if you want to make a motion to postpone I totally get it and if the council votes to do that I respect that that that's the process but just because he filed or a motion reconsider was filed does not mean that that removes the jurisdiction of this City Council once we have a posted agenda as required by law for a public meeting that we posted to the public I think probably two weeks ago or at least 14 days ago is it 14 days for a public hearing notification okay so what's the scar tissue let's make sure moving forward we don't bring something to the City Council from P&Z until after that motion to reconsider of time period has expired because there is a difference between having a motion to reconsider before the jurisdictional limits of the council are enacted and become effective and a motion to reconsider without it and you've been entrusted by this body just to call meeting lever that we have I mean we meet two Tuesdays a month that gives if we have to do something like this I'm happy to support this motion so before anything we do and other folks brought this forward and that's I look forward for that looking forward to what this means this means councils set the take up something and sets the precedent that it meant and I think this this this protect that public as not foreclose us from having a thank you mr. Mayor I just want to make it remind us that there are many and for whatever reason and while we're more information we need this go back this is an element of the process where sometimes it you've done that before for recognize that we have we're with anything out of ordinary we be the action if this to this or not that is the piece of information that we need to make our decision so I don't think it's out of the ordinary thank you mr. mayor okay all right we have a motion to postpone by councilmember Meltzer seconded by councilmember McGee so to vote and the affirmative is to postpone let's vote on the screen that motion fails for three I'll call the other items since they were referenced item B CA 2 3 0 0 1 a hold a public hearing consider adoption of ordinance of the city of Denton Texas regarding a comprehensive plan amendment of approximately 24 acres from business center future land use development to moderate residential future land use and I'll open that public hearing I'll also call item C Z 2 3 0 0 0 6 a hold a public hearing consider adoption of ordinance of the city of Denton Texas regarding a change in zoning district and use classifications from L light industrial Li district to residential 7 our 7 district approximately 24 acres and I'll open that public hearing so all three are before us now staff you have one presentation or okay got it good evening Julie Wyatt principal planner with the city of Denton and I'm presenting Mayhill multifamily project it is all one presentation there are three requests sir proposal is for a multifamily development it does have three requests associated with it a comprehensive plan amendment a zoning a rezoning request and then a specific use permit because all of these requests build upon each other interrelated I'll just have one presentation and I'll try to be brief in that presentation so the subject property is a 24 acre site on the west side of Mayhill it includes two subject tracks a 17 acre tract on the north of the site and then a secondary tract of seven acres but that is just half of a tract it's leaving a remainder seven acre parcel adjacent to Russell Newman the site also has two environmentally sensitive areas there's a riparian buffer and a water related habitat shown on the map on your screen so first the comprehensive plan amendment on the existing the existing future land use map is designates the property is business center that's intended for employment uses and also supporting commercial uses it does not allow single standalone residential uses within that future land use map the proposed modification is to change that to moderate residential that would allow for residential uses on the property up to 12 dwelling units per acre we did analyze the comprehensive plan amendment that proposal with those overall goals with the comprehensive plan and it was consistent with with our goals for land use as well as the community vision statement and also our housing goals to provide additional housing and a variety of housing types within the city we also looked at the trends and that's one of the criterion for approval for a comprehensive plan amendment the subject property is located on that loop 288 Mayhill corridor several decades ago the city anticipated there would be more employment or industrial type uses in this area since then however most of our industrial development really has moved toward our northwest side of town so along that I 35 corridor we're seeing that more that industrial development go in that direction there's also a little piece of industrial development they're on 380 just northeast of the subject property and since that time the loop has has developed really is that commercial corridor with those high density residential uses in those and those retail and service uses and so this request to moderate density residential is just consistent with that trend that's been going on and we also looked at the site conditions related to the property regarding whether it could develop as within that business center designation and things like access and property size environmental features particularly that east are running diagonally through that northern tract would make a development of industrial type uses somewhat challenging for this property so for those reasons staff recommends approval of the comprehensive plan amendment I'll be happy to answer pause here and answer questions or I could just keep going with the with the rezoning any questions for staff at this point mayor pro tem thank you mr. mayor so one of the things that in in the in the request to change in a lot of this material was was a provided in in all all the items so for you know forgive me and let me know if I'm if I'm in the wrong item but I believe the mayor called them all so I hope I'm not out of order to to address all and what and one of those is we have our financial tool that in commission really real alluded to this in his concerns that says this is going to cost you know where's a lot of developments we fact we saw one earlier where the financial tool was used that says and there was a there's a positive impact on the city can you explain a little bit about the the negative impacts for the financial tool and and why go into a little more detail why you think well why staff thinks this is justified compared to the you know you know similar item we saw earlier today sure so that finally that fiscal impact tool is something that the staff with information from the applicant puts those inputs in and it looks at things like property taxes and sales tax and and employment base and yes that fiscal impact tool did indicate that there would be an an eight million dollar negative result related to it but it is just one factor that we look at when we look at projects because we do have projects that come that wouldn't necessarily make money for the for the city but it would meet those other criteria associated with the rezoning and so for that matter while that's an important metric it is we look at we looked at kind of all of those criteria and that's how we analyze these these projects and so they wouldn't always necessarily be in that positive column on that fiscal impact I guess I don't have I don't have a good feel so do we have a good feel for I don't remember one that that had a negative impact before I know our financial tool is new new ish do we have prior negative ones before we have and they are often related to some residential type uses because those types of uses don't often make money for the for a city and so that's why we have had a couple I know personally I had a rezoning for a property in on the north side of town that was in that negative range and it is just related to that residential use versus maybe some other types of uses okay and if you might mr. mayor have another question sure okay so one of the things that through there is a is the we talked about the two uses on site and and I and it's my understanding that the developer plans to expand one of these is beyond or at least retain beyond what they're required not expand in the tree code and so we have the additional ESA but is it's it's my understanding and in general this is a this is sort of a continuous piece of canopy parcels you know sort of over by the shelter across 288 through this area at the DMV along through into the the drainage as we head eastwards is there it feels like we're continuing to fragment what would be more of a natural corridor can you or somebody describe a little bit about why we think you know additional fragmentation is is either not going to happen or why it's justified sure so you are correct there there are those two eases and they're related if you can see on your screen it's a riparian buffer and that water related habitat as proposed in and it might make more sense when we get to the SUP but I can go ahead and start start addressing that now so as because it does have an SUP associated with this request they would have to develop as they are proposing if they're gonna want to develop that use and so I'll just I'll just skip ahead to that that site plan so you'll see here we've got that ESA it's it's in that bubbled area that's kind of got that hatch mark it's a little lighter color so they are proposing to not impact that ESA that that ESA would would remain intact and would actually extend north to the adjacent property on there actually they do have a perimeter fence but that perimeter fence would not cross that ESA to make sure you've got that continuity that that that that fence would would end at that point and go to other parts and so we are we don't anticipate a fragmentation of that ESA because it is remaining exactly the way it is today and would connect to that adjacent ESA to the north okay but can you can you address that that broader concern of its if its role and impact in regionally in terms of the the environmental impacts and our sort of new element of our comprehensive plan in which we are talking about preferred patterns of preservation I want to make sure that we don't just nod and smile with this new component of our comp plan sure so yes our preferred land preservation map within our comprehensive plan really looks at those ESA areas as well as our floodplain area to make sure that we're protecting those and that we are looking at those a little harder when we have a project come in and so when we have a project come in you know for example if they were proposing impacts to that ESA that's where it would be a little more challenging because right now they are staying outside of the of the limits of that ESA so that they are not impacting within the the boundary of that of that preferred land preservation that that that stays intact do we have a broader map other way I mean or I can go to our interactive maps if you like you can you can plug in 32 17 Deerfield Drive that'll put you between that that's the nearest property what we're talking about is between Mayhill and loop 288 as a corridor it's thinking yeah no worries I'm looking at it 32 you have 32 17 Deerfield Drive that'll get you close on the north side I don't south of there yeah I think yeah I'm looking at Google Maps that because that's that remnant church I think maybe I'm wrong no you're right okay no I think this will work that's good thank you so sorry wrong wrong that's a speech that was a speaker before it's Holland drive sorry hey hey you hadn't been recognized a speaker so you know there there's the development to the west south south of the shelter and there's sort of that their area extending across the corridor and yes I recognize that 288 and Mayhill provide significant fragmentation but overall you still more maintaining sort of this pattern of land preservation that allows for these green space corridors that provide value to the community and biological function in the community to to sort of have a continuous throw so that you know we're you know there there's an opportunity for for you know the development of future wildlife corridors or anything else where we're looking at a network effect and so even though we have these big these big roads passing through providing fairly you know substantial fragmentation if we're then developing to the to the maximum extent on those lands and then you don't then it you may you exacerbate the the challenges that you've provided to this this pattern and so I guess it is I understand that we're being asked to to to you know make a decision on this parcel alone but you have to put in larger context along with the comp plan I think is that not correct correct absolutely okay in any other succinct questions other than statements yes sir if I might I just want to make sure that we're just keep keep in context that when staffs making recommendation they're looking at the criteria for recommendation and a couple of these elements that are mentioned although it's it's understand what we're trying to do staff doesn't have that luxury of you know because we have it on the preferred preservation plan that's not a regulatory document just like the future land use map is not a regulatory document so staffs making reckon recommendation on the elements in which we have that authority to do so just want to make sure we temper that certainly yes no thank you for that and so again do we any other questions that that's what I'm trying to get to not statements at this face okay all right all right so we'll just go over to the zoning case and I promise I won't be I won't be repetitive excuse me so the existing zoning on the property is light industrial district that allows commercial uses light industrial uses low-impact manufacturing warehousing it is consistent with that existing future land use map it's also consistent to that with the Li to them to the south however it could create impacts to those residential residentially zoned properties and neighborhoods to the north you've got our four to the north of the subject property located right here they are proposing our seven district that allows for a variety of housing types including single-family all the way to multifamily with an approved specific use permit this is consistent with the proposed future land use map I mean it would potentially create that bridge that transitional area between the r4 and the residential neighborhoods to the north and the light industrial that has centered along Russell Newman we also look at impacts to surrounding the surrounding area with any rezoning on that are seven we don't anticipate any negative impacts to their residential properties to the north and we also don't anticipate any impacts to the property to the south as any development to the property the South would have to follow all of our development and landscaping and buffering requirements therefore for these reasons staff recommends approval of the rezoning request and I will be happy to answer any questions regarding this or move on to their requested SUP let's just move on yeah all right and finally the specific use permit so they are proposing 281 multifamily dwellings in a variety of types they have two typical garden style apartment buildings on the west side and on the south side and then the the horizontal multifamily cottages we've been seeing quite a few of those throughout the site you could see on on your screen that there those buildings are arranged in a compact grid type pattern with the with the pedestrian trails throughout the site also sort of hugging that ESA or moving around that ESA and kind of a u-shape pattern and then they do have proposed common areas if you if you notice on the aerial there's quite a quite a bit of mature trees on the west side of the property so we we worked with them and they are preserving those those trees along the west side of the property between the West property line and the and and the that West building in the parking area they're also putting that ESA area along with their retention pond in a common area lot there's also dog park and other amenities so meeting our minimum open space requirements so staff recommends approval of the request is we don't anticipate negative impacts with the surrounding property it complies with the criteria for approval but as with all SUPs we have conditions that we are proposing I won't read these to you but they are our kind of our typical SUP conditions and that it allows staff to to approve minor changes five percent increase in the number of dwelling units or associated parking some minor changes to maybe building placement or plant selection anything more major than something like that would have to go back to to council for for approval we are also proposing that they provide two pedestrian gates to Mayhill to connect to that public sidewalk that their tree preservation because they are preserving that treed area on the west side that it can't go below 25 percent of the onsite inches our code allows developments to go down to 20 percent we wanted to put that threshold in there to make sure that that tree stand stays as much as possible and then we also because the ESA is an important part of this site and that approval of the SUP would not constitute any approval for impacts to that ESA so they could not do any grading or clearing any of that activity within the ESA if they did want to do that they would have to come back for approval of an alternative ESA plan so with that staff recommends approval of that SUP public outreach was sent out I received one in favor it's the property to the south of the site staff recommends approval of all three requests with those conditions on the SUP it also did go to the planning and zoning Commission last week they also recommended approval six to zero with staffs conditions on that SUP I will be happy to answer any questions and the applicant is here with a little more detailed presentation okay so let me get there sorry any questions for staff my screens come back up bear with me Councilor Watts yeah just just to make sure I heard discreet so there's 24 acres here yes sir and was it 281 units okay that's eight units per acre am I as based on at least the 24 divided by 281 divided by 24 is yeah yeah it's so which is fairly low density when it comes to multifamily and also because they're providing some horizontal structures which they could have you know decided to do something different so yeah I've heard a lot about this financial impact study so I want to make sure I understood what you said earlier and that is if if we use that as a major determining factor in most of our residential developments all right our single-family that's it single family typically does not quote unquote pay for itself over time based upon all those things I mean I mean it probably every project is different right residential is one of those that often doesn't get to that no positive number no no I understand that and so that's not the only criteria in fact if we look at this eight million dollars sounds like a heck of a lot of money it does it's spread out over 40 years which is $200,000 a year and I've asked for I mean apparently we proved this approved this so I want to see the formula on how this is calculated later on somewhere down the line because these are all assumptions that we make and this is a I think I calculated based upon what the city I'm sorry mayor it's not a question I just need to get this out and I'll be quiet the tax revenue was estimated at 13 million and some odd dollars a year I mean over the 40 years that's about three hundred fifty thousand dollars a year at our current tax rate at our current tax rate that would be almost a sixty fifty to sixty million dollar assessed value project price to get that so I think we need to make sure that if we're gonna if we're gonna all of a sudden decide we're deciding projects on that financial statement or on that you know financial impact statement number one we didn't even include the utilities and that is just general fund but it shows it shows utility revenue and so if we're gonna start doing that I think for those who don't want growth and then that's what it will achieve because most it'll all be industrial it'll all be you know other kinds of commercial because residential I can guarantee you does not do it so I just wanted to make sure that we put that piece of information in context 40 years is a long time and a lot of things change so thank you Councilman Burke I guess I'm going along with the quality of life piece here I know that there are a lot of there's a lot of things happening here and I do understand that our city is behind on units that's needed there are people that want to move into spaces where there's no space I am understanding that there is a big pushback on multifamily facilities here because there are some people that just don't want an apartment complex next to their house but by my question right now and what I didn't get or feel from this particular project is this a is this a family-oriented project or is this for for professionals or is a student driven how how are we looking at this project applicant is here and he may be better that'll be nice to answer that sorry because we have students we have parents with children we have single professionals and I know that we were directing some housing towards that area I personally would appreciate it if we're gonna put a multifamily a multiplex here in the city that it gives opportunities for children to live in or under a roof can can you all come up and and give me some more information about that yeah you can come on up and you can just do your let's just go to the presentation yeah yeah go ahead and get started there's some other questions in queue but it'll just be good to have you up here and between the two of y'all you can field all the questions I just feel like when I drive down the road and I see a large facility coming up that I know that there's some kids that have a roof over their head right absolutely absolutely give your name and then yes I think you have 20 minutes and they'll set the timer okay good evening Thomas Fletcher with Kim Lee Horn 61 61 Parkway Frisco Texas good evening mayor and council members I appreciate the opportunity I will try and address the questions that I've heard one second can we reset that timer for 20 minutes no it's 20 minutes right if there's all right yeah for the applicant if you could help we'll get it go ahead all right good evening Thomas Fletcher I have a brief presentation for you and hopefully one of the things I want to do tonight is try and answer some of the questions and then also the concerns I've had from Commissioner Villarreal just kind of touching base on your question initially as that way you can kind of think about it this isn't it's not marketed towards student housing it is more family oriented just to give you an idea within the SUP there's 55% one bedroom 38% two bedroom and about 8% or seven and a half percent that are three bedroom as as it was mentioned here's the location of the site you can kind of see there's residential that's to the north there's residential that's to the both the east and west you have a little bit of industrial to the south as Julie had mentioned in her presentation the reason or part of the request for support of the comprehensive plan amendment is because that industrial corridor is really moved to the I-35 380 corridor whereas the loop 288 area has really been more of a retail commercial living center type area and in our requests supports that really want to talk about kind of project process and how we've gotten here because this is a because it includes the comprehensive plan amendment the zoning and the SUP we have gone through a lot of different processes and a lot of applications before we've gotten to this point we've gone out and done a tree survey because of the high density or the amount of trees on the side it was important for us to go out and do an assessment of the trees tag all of the trees survey all the trees understand where they're located understand what type of trees the health of the trees so that as we develop this plan we could design our plan around those trees meeting the preservation requirements and then also incorporating that into the design we also did the ESA assessment that was approved by the city in January of 2023 as it was mentioned there's riparian buffer and water habitat we are proposing to preserve a hundred percent of that ESA we're not proposing any impact to that ESA obviously we'll have to go through the construction plan process to show that as we design it we're not providing any impacts but we've developed the site plan around that ESA so that we can incorporate it and make that a advantage or a you know a complement to the overall development whereas if you look at industrial development typically what you're seeing is building rooftop parking you're not seeing a lot of tree preservation you're not seeing a lot of of those natural features that get incorporated into a site we did have a neighborhood meeting on June 19th we did have some neighbors surrounding neighbors attend that we didn't hear any concerns for them we were able to answer all their questions with regard to the project and and we got positive feedback from that there was an in-person meeting with FEMA on August 7th as you had heard earlier that was a good meeting there was good discussion there was open dialogue about their concerns and some of the things that we could do to address those concerns with lighting it was even the the offer was made by the developer to allow FEMA to place security cameras that would look into that open space area if there was concerns there for you know for security purposes we are in the process of working on our downstream assessment so that's our next step in the process the site plan there really when we're looking at this the there's R4 to the north of us but there is an approved SUP on that R4 for townhomes so when we looked at the layout with the cottages and with the multifamily we really tried to use the garden style multifamily buildings to buffer the surrounding light industrial uses and then use the cottages to kind of transition into the residential to the north where those townhomes have an approved preliminary plot I know that that project hasn't moved forward with construction plans but it does have an approved SUP and preliminary plot there are two multifamily buildings there's 129 proposed cottages went through the different unit counts for the different bedroom sizes there will be a clubhouse and pool it is a nice resort style pool there will be a lot of amenities for this development there's internal trails there's significant number of trails those trails are going through those treed areas so that the residents in this community will feel a sense of community that they'll get to enjoy those trees those open spaces the ESA's so we did feel like that was important to incorporate that into the development it will be gated with the exception that the perimeter fencing will stop at the ESA but the entries into the community will be gated controlled controlled access and the retention pond will be a water quality pond that will hold water so it will be an amenity to the development as well so that's adding another environmental aspect to the project adjacent to that adjacent to that ESA so meeting the city of Denton's water quality requirements we've incorporated a wet pond or retention pond so that prior to any discharges into that ESA that riparian buffer that will go through that water quality process so that that water is treated prior to discharge again here's the overall layout you can see the the open space that is incorporated within the development there's a lot of green space there will be foundational plantings as if it was a you know with typical single-family detached in addition to the trees that are being planted there's also going to be shrubs ground covers flowers those types of things as well there there is a there's on the garden style multifamily there's a three-story building and there's a two three split there is quite a bit of topography on the site so another benefit of multifamily in the cottages is it allows you to design and develop around the topography whereas that's a little more challenging with light industrial so the two three split split will have two floors on the high side three floors on the bottom side so it's it's going to create some really nice natural characteristic to the overall layout of the development there's a difference you can see here on the top is the the two-story and on the bottom that's the same building where you have the three-story and we're using a variety of materials as well to kind of accent those those buildings and create a real nice high quality look for the development here are some of the renderings of the cottages here's the resort style pool also showing the landscaping it would also have the fence along May Hill and the access gates as city staff recommended in their conditions so just kind of going back through the impact on environmental obviously the proposed development for this residential use is going to have less impact than an industrial development would we're able to incorporate those riparian areas those trees into the development into the community and and and preserve those with the surrounding residential uses the future town homes to the north the existing residential the future residential to the east we do feel like it is compatible with the surrounding uses that was one of the the comments and then there was the question about security adjacent our meeting with FEMA we talked about ways lighting the walkways security cameras it was even mentioned that having sprinklers with spray heads that shoot a good distance if to kind of keep people moving and not kind of congregating in that back area was also a suggestion that was made so there was just open dialogue with FEMA about ways that we can incorporate elements into the design to potentially help address any any security issues that's really the presentation I have and I would be happy to stand for any questions I think Lee was going to may want to speak on one of the items as well did you want to do that now yeah we'll have we'll have that certainly councilman Burke for being helpful so what I didn't hear was something in regards to some type of child activity I know that we do a lot of dog parks but do we ever do anything in regards to children parks and basketball courts and pickleball and and something like that that would probably keep our kids more safer if we would have that kind of thing at home rather than having them to walk down the street around the corner to to the next you know what I'm talking about so are you all thinking along the lines of the in care of kids they may live there yeah and I think the first of all the with the community being gated it provides that sense of security and protection for families and kids the clubhouse with the pool their outdoor areas there's being bag toss areas this community this community would have a dog park there is an area that we have designated for a dog park there the trails would be open and available I'm not sure I don't believe and I would let Lee speak to it is regarding any specific type of play equipment that has been specified for the development thank you miss Burr for asking those questions if you notice on our site plan we have intentionally left some open spaces outside and if you look at I can't really point on this but if you look next to the first multifamily building there's some open spaces there open spaces just to the south of that and then just to the north of that there's some open spaces and we had considered a playground not pickleball or basketball but those are some things that we've talked about we didn't show them on our site plan but in internally with our property management group those are some things we have considered and we'll definitely consider it now that you brought it up up the street and around a corner yeah now you know it would be a way for a mom to have to walk her child to go in place somewhere absolutely so if you want what please keep that in mind I don't know what kind of change but we've left open space for those kind of things intentionally so we'll we'll absolutely get something please do that and I think that's any other questions for me while I'm here we did talk a little bit about the financial impact I heard that brought up I'm not sure where the 8 million dollar number exactly came from so I probably need to understand where that came from but owning a considerable amount of multifamily and didn't and owning a considerable amount of industrial and didn't I can I can tell you I can run the numbers very quickly and tell you that the property tax alone on the multifamily the value will be more than the industrial now we're not taking in consideration some other things some you know we'll only create about only I say we'll create about ten jobs with this multifamily project on site management on site porters on site maintenance because that's why this project takes about the size so there will be jobs created here but I know the value of what will be on the ground will be approximately 65 million dollars for this particular project you go take a value of 200,000 square foot industrial building that's about 20 million dollars about a hundred dollars a foot so the property value alone that's not taking an inventory tax so I want to be clear I'm not running the whole picture here but just the property value and school taxes alone will be much more within a multifamily development rather than industrial okay all right we have a few questions to you mayor Pro Tem questions yes Lee who owns the property to the south do you guys on that I know that's not a consideration but yes yes the the partnership group owns that and the reason we chose to leave it Li is because it faced Russell Newman Boulevard and we just thought that would be a good transition you know offer Russell Newman to transition to the large buildings and then step it down as it goes across the side now I appreciate that I guess I'm trying to weigh that the concerns I I know that you know I'm seen as the big tree-hugging boogie monster on this one but but the the issue is I I would have loved to have seen you move have a concept site plan to the south that actually three stories four stories higher densities that make it pencil even easier and yet maintain that through corridor to the north and along with the ESA changes and and so develop that in a concert that actually increases the density provides for more units it is it is going into the so my question is yeah thank you mr. mayor for cautioning me but my question you Lee is is what would you consider a plan in which you moved some of this to the south and at a higher density so the issue with that so you know you try to guess you know when you when you try to get these projects approved you really try to think through go okay what's what's how do we get this project successfully zoned right because we know you know we spend about two hundred twenty five thousand dollars to get to this point with all of our studies and those things so you know we try to guess right well how does this overall plan work how do we get these transitions and so in our mind I'm not answering your question directly but I will in in our mind is we go okay we already have a thoroughfare street here so let's try to keep that consistent with lab and all across the street with the rust with the old Russell Newman building that's the furniture store and and having the stoplight basically given a hard corner there at Russell Newman and Mayhill so as we thought through it we thought with that commercial corridor there we should leave that to be an industrial or it could be office or it could be and in discussing with FEMA you know one question they asked us if we were going to leave that so they could maybe purchase that in the future or relocate something that they have on site and expand their existing building so when we're going through the process that be honest with you that wasn't even a thought we were trying to think how do we make this a transitional site and we were trying to intentionally leave that so I actually hadn't thought about it the only the only one thing that I can think that could be a little bit of an issue if you know you expanded a public road through there it loses some of the security of our site and we all know y'all seen budgets what public roads cost today so a lot of times it can be cost-prohibitive to develop a site in today's world that's if you notice that's why we did cluster the density as much as we could to the middle to try to preserve as much as possible so I don't know if I answered your question or not but that's that was our mindset of how we got there no you addressed my question I appreciate that I guess I'll just say for you and any of your cohort out there you know I know about anybody else but I clearly value the diminishing resources of the green space and trees and yet I will you know vote to reduce parking vote to increase density vote to all kinds of things that will make it pencil in order to not have a resource that can never come back go away and I would do respect that obviously you know I think we think about that as we go through these things and I appreciate that the that is one reason we did want to go to residential rather than industrial because it would have had a much greater impact on those resources than the residential because we were able to split that back building and make that the retaining wall and build that in the building to be able to leave that tree stand behind FEMA that's and that's a much more expensive construction because now I got to build a head wall all the way through there so we did take that into consideration and really try to design our site plan as it flowed across the site to do those things and I hope I hope that's recognized it's kind of hard to explain on a flat piece of paper but when we're looking at it three dimension in the CAD you can see I appreciate that thank you thank you customer McGee thank you mayor and Mayor Pro Tem I appreciate I appreciate those cotton those thoughts and sentiments at the end though so just a couple quick questions traffic studying yes it's been completed and approved by the city did you reached out to the area schools to make sure that can absorb the impact we have not reached out to any school ISDs in that area are you is that something you're going to be going to be doing absolutely I can reach out the superintendent I serve on a few boards with him and see what team he would like us to to meet with I appreciate that I am I appreciate your due diligence and and the public means and meeting with FEMA going to step in step and in the right direction above and beyond you've done that for every project since I've been on council so I thank you for your commitment to the community thank you mayor alright counselor Meltzer yeah not not a question I will say I have a question for staff I will say I appreciate the the whole effort to provide housing while keeping it as green as possible within that site my question for staff is in that economic impact calculation does it first of all preface it by saying I've heard for years that that residential is you know negative to city government but is that only looking at property tax or does it take into account that when new people come in they buy things and they generate sales tax too so our fiscal impact tool is a is a pretty big machine that has the inputs and it does take into account sales tax capture because of those employees so it does try to take in account I probably can't account for every variable but it but it does look at that okay understood thank you okay any other questions mayor can I mention one thing before we close here certainly you know these planners have to go through and deal with developers on a day-to-day basis and there's a lot of hard conversations that have to go into these projects as we're laying them out working through all this and Julie this project's been going on a while and I just want to give her thank you because she has gone through you know with the ESA with the traffic and with the trees she has gone above and beyond and had every hard come or as many hard conversations as we could think of before we got here so I just like to compliment her on how she handled this project and how she prepared for it it was probably one of the better presentations I've ever seen in a very complicated project so I think it'd be appropriate for everybody say thank you because I think yeah that's good thank you very much I appreciate the the comment and it's well overseas thank you very much I appreciate that and I appreciate you saying so and I don't see any other questions this is a public hearing anyone is welcome to speak just if you've not obviously I don't have any blue cards so you can fill out a blue blue card after you spoke but please it's public hearing by all means anyone's welcome to speak seeing no sudden movements I'll close the public hearing for all three I'll take we'll have to vote individually I'll just say I think most of the questions have been asked and answered I do want to understand one thing though that housing that the houses to the north the the map says r4 I mean those are really then it looks more like r7 on the ground am I I just want to make sure I understand what I'm looking at yeah and I know it says r4 there but if you go back to the to the earlier slide you see the the picture yeah those that's r4 I think it is a combination of r4 and there's a little bit of r6 on the north side if you can go back to the picture because that's right by the street yes sir yes so but even if you come down that it there all look like they're spaced the same my eyes are just playing tricks on me well it was developed under a previous code and I don't know specifically on this project but if y'all recall the 2002 code had a maximum density and not a minimum lot size that could be why those densities are a little different and that might be why those lots look smaller yeah that may be something in the future we want to because we're saying you know we we want to sync up what's on the ground with what's coming and that's not intuitive to say there was a change at some point right but that yeah I'd be shocked if that's r4 on the ground yeah as we understand right so I think it's important to note because we're talking to our seven next to our seven with green space between it that's different than our four to the north our seven to the south you know it just it presents different absolutely yes so okay thank you Councilor Watts so we're taking these individually yes okay so we're on item item B yes all right yeah I'll make a motion to approve and I think staff had some recommendations did y'all have some recommending I thought you said you had some but you weren't gonna okay just okay as presented by staff make a motion as presented by staff okay Councilor McGee second okay motion by Councilmember Watts second by Councilmember McGee this is item B alone comments mayor pro tem thank you mr. mayor I appreciate this and to the people watching the developer and Lee and I appreciate that I heard the concerns I respect that y'all doing your part and and I don't know how the vote is gonna go but I think on this first one you know I got to stick to my principles of holding to the sort of you know what we put in the plan the objections that I raised I'm gonna tell you right now I'm getting a sense that from the questions it's not gonna go my way and that is not a dig against you as a developer or anything it is just that I'm trying to follow what I think is the right course of action for the city of Denton so I appreciate that thank you everyone for indulging me all right any other comments seeing none this vote on the screen that passes 6-1 takes us to item C I'll take a motion Councilor Watts so move Councilor McGee second any discussion seeing none this vote on the screen that pass is 7-0 takes us to item D Councilor Watts so move on item D for approval thank you is there a second that was me Councilor McGee so all right motion by Councilor Watts second by Councilor McGee let him catch up there we go any other discussion let's vote on the screen Councilor Burke you you good oh no worries just want to make sure it's all good that passes 7-0 good luck with your project thank you thank you everyone for the good conversation important takes us to item E Z 2 3 0 0 0 7 B hold a public hearing and consider adoption of ordinance of the city of Denton Texas regarding a change in the zoning district and use classifications from residential to district to mix use it district on approximately 1.73 acres good evening mayor and members of council Sean Jacobson associate planner here to present a request for rezoning from a residential to district to a mixed-use neighborhood zoning district 1.73 acres this request is consistent with the future land use designation for the property and does forward the goals of our comprehensive plan there have been significant changes in the area around this property that warn of rezoning this request for a zoning change does align with all of our approval criteria for a zoning change standard public notification resulted in three responses two in favor one in opposition the one response in opposition was for a property that made up more than 20 percent of the 200-foot buffer and that does trigger the supermajority requirement and all those letters were provided in your backup for your review with that planning and zoning Commission and staff recommend approval and I'll be happy to stand for any questions all right questions for staff mayor Pro Tem thank you I appreciate that mr. I don't have a so much heartburn with the actual project but the question that is sent in to staff is in general we when we have a designation a future land use map a future land use designation of neighborhood mixed use that is a certain kind and style of density of commercial retail and neighborhood all mixed together to provide that sort of you know neighborhood with amenities and services versus a straight-up residential designation and my concern is if we and when we're doing our development planning and in order to not pontificate as I can already feel the mayor so thank you for thinking that at me mr. mayor but then my question is how does it affect our planning if only one type of a mixed-use zone goes into that zone how does that impact our planning if only residential goes into a mixed-use or if only retail goes into a mixed-use how does we we're actually seeing this in razor ranch where we're getting a lot more residential than the retail that was initially envisioned so how does that affect our goals and plans on those sites of designations thank you for that question and that's a great question I will say that the MN zoning actually does and that's all we can bring before you right now is simply that zoning change and that zoning district does actually allow for a range of uses both residential and commercial and so to your point we don't know necessarily how this will develop the developer may have an intent but the zoning that's being requested does actually allow for a range of uses to be developed on this property which could be any mix of things I will also note that while it does call for a mix of uses a residential use and a mix of residential uses is expected to be primary within that future land use designation explanation but again and then zoning allows for that range of uses and I think that really is consistent with the future land use map to have a zoning district that does allow a range of uses just as the future land use district calls for okay yeah I appreciate that I'm not sure exactly this is not a dig exactly it just is my I guess my question but I because I don't really have a heartburn with this one particular development I'll just leave it there but I will I will encourage us if we're gonna plan for a zone that we we try to achieve that zone is rather than let it wobble a lot but thank you okay councillor McGee thank mr. mayor I would like to ask you without giving the person's name speak to the person speak about the person who voiced the letter in opposition yeah absolutely I mean do you remember off top your head you need me to read the comment no no the neighbor was concerned that there was not a plan provided for the property and upon receiving that response the developer reached out to the neighbor and provided the concept plan that they had submitted when they saw her request thanks John thank you thank you Sean I'll just say I have a hard time with this one just and so I can only get on board if there's a if there's a stipulation that it's not gonna be multifamily I just we have it's surrounded by for rent cottage homes single-family homes there's just not around there there's just the I just think it's too detached on a main thoroughfare I take mayor Pro Tem's point that when I envisioned Bonnie Bray and it being expanded and there's no retail now if you're telling me there's some retail at the bottom I can probably get on board with reconsidering my approach to that because now I see our families at Northlake parks and instead of going all the way to raise a ranch they're coming straight across the street and buying from 7-eleven buying from you know howdy duty not to give anybody any plugs it's something like that that now they're not driving all now they're not driving we're taking traffic away from raise a ranch we're serving a community apartment complex to the north the high school you know those sort of things if it plugs into the to the need of that area kind of that needs analysis in my mind so I just want to be full fully transparent I'll hang up and listen but that's that that's the the barrier I'm having a hard time getting across so I'm fine with the MN I take it that it's just straight zoning but for me if the motion doesn't have a prohibition on multifamily straight up then then I'm gonna have a hard time getting there so any other questions for staff I'll open the public hearing this is a public hearing anyone can speak just need to speak and fill out a card afterwards but counselor Watts okay any public speakers anyone care to speak no sudden movements I'll close a public hearing I'll take a motion or comment council what yeah just a couple questions so I understand your concerns mayor on the PD this right behind the station 5 access now they're under construction I believe yes sir and what is that the PD if I'm remember correctly that is going to be single sorry behind I want to make sure I'm talking about the right property yes it's yes right it's sort of almost is behind doesn't quite wrap around station 5 it's right there it looks like they're building some type of multifamily just because of the density of the the rough-in plumbing and foundations and things that yes I believe that to be the case okay all right what can I if can I orient with you sure to the are we talking about to the east no it's on the east of Bonnie Bray is right behind it's north of the fire station number 5 yeah on the east side of Bonnie Bray and yeah going heading east and north yeah okay yeah yeah yeah those those are cottage homes though yeah I don't know are they I mean I yeah I don't know that's why I asked but that's okay I mean there's something going in there that's either like you said cottage homes or some type of residential component yes so I guess and this is this is where you know we've had this discussion before and it does make it complicated but I know that when we talk about coming before for straight say straight zoning I know mayor you mentioned that if it doesn't have some condition on it that you're gonna struggle to support it so my question becomes to the city attorney because I know PD has been sort of used in the pet or actually PD light or something like that has been used to try to provide some type of overlay capability so and and this coming before us is a straight rezoning do we have the ability to put in those kinds of conditions with sort of how we've determined the straight zoning cases would would go I mean because there's sometimes some confusion about that I mean because they don't present concept plans anymore which they used to which is okay that's what we decided at least that I mean they do but it's not necessarily they're not held to it so help me understand that yeah I mean you just have to help me because I wasn't as closely involved on the PD light but this is a straight zoning you can't add a condition to a straight zoning so we'd have to do this or change it to a PD light if you wanted to add some conditions to it where I'm trying to look up and I'm trying to stay with you is what that process involves whether that can be done on the fly or whether we need to do some additional reposting in order to allow the council the ability to do that that's the part I'm trying to track right now I'll let you know when I find out okay and mayor if I could just follow up on that sure so you said that a concept plan was submitted to the neighbor who expressed opposition that does trigger the super majority yes okay did I miss that in the backup do we do we have the concept plan in the backup no because we're not held to that we generally have not okay that and I don't disagree with that are you able to share with us at least your observation of what was submitted and the only reason I say this understanding nobody's held to it there's nothing that but I think it's just I mean unless somebody's really telling somebody a bill of goods trying to sell them a bill of goods that they've told him in at least in good faith what may be out there was it was it and it's in a big site so you're not gonna get a whole lot on here I mean unless you go four or five stories if it's multifamily yeah so if you'll note at the property just to the south of that is also I'm sorry it's not also a zoned MN and that is owned by the same property owner as the property that is requesting and so the proposal is for those two sites okay to be developed together which was part of the reason staff as looking at this looked at and said we have him in here a minor addition of this okay so MN is already there yes so we could technically say no to this but they could still take the rest of the MN and put whatever is allowed under that zoning classification yes okay thank you appreciate thank you mayor thank you good questions council councilman Meltzer thank you I'm just trying to get a clear fix on where this is and see if I'm mistaken this is this is at Windsor and Monty Bray yes sir and it shows that's like more or less opposite where the fire station is yes sir okay yes I think it is isn't there a whole lot of multifamily on the west side of Bonnie Bray south of Windsor between Windsor and University yes there has been a significant amount of multifamily development in that area because I you know I'm looking at that well I guess it's the comprehensive plan is showing green you know along there I don't know how that happened let's say but I mean in terms of whether it fits or not I guess I'm having a little bit of cognitive dissonance between two things one is this is shown as all green along there but it looks like all multifamily to me when I drive on it and the second thing is the idea that it you know if you forget about that the idea that wouldn't fit I mean it seems it seems like it exactly fits at least what I see yeah when staff was analyzing this our consideration was that this is an area where we've had significant multifamily development in an area where we're going to have expanded pedestrian capacity with the widening Bonnie Bray that would really enable access for all those similar uses to get down to Razor Ranch and that is kind of the pattern of development as you can see up to about where the high school is it does still leave me a little bit wondering well while I'm like square on that how did that all that end up happening with the west side of Bonnie Bray you know being coded as agricultural is that what the green is the east side of the west side the west side I'm sorry the west side is that is the park yeah yeah no no no no west side where is this upside down sorry I say that west side pink that's that is a neighborhood mixed use yeah south of Windsor right which is it's just yeah it's just a neighboring area so it's not directly germane other than it goes to like you know is consistent with the surrounding area but it's you know it's green on this map yes looks like it to me anyway when I drive by there so yeah that's actually a function of just the fact that in the future land use map colors bleed over a little bit to the side we make the boundaries a little bit fuzzy and so we see that so when you look at a property if you may have a small amount of it that bleeds over what we're looking at what is the majority of that designation this is a coloring issue Wow okay all right I can deal with that but in any event thank you you've confirmed my perception that this is an area that's pretty solid multifamily right nearby well thanks I have a question Sean can you pull up the Google Maps because I disagree with that assessment multifamily by name certainly exactly yeah it's it there's no apartments there none so you're you what come on pull up Google Maps that'll help you there there there because I was at the ribbon cutting for all those things there's single-family homes for rent and that's the difference right it's you pointed out the exact opposite of what you were trying to do is there's no apartments there they're all across the street further to the south it's surrounded by single-family for rent and it may not be updated but all but there's no multifamily traditional apartments in that area but for on I-35 they're not there they would be built behind so immaculate conceptions on the corner and and then you would have those those spaces the green spaces underneath the church are all for rent there's a villages raise a ranch or something like that and their full service home cottages for rent there's no multifamily as proposed in that area so thank you it didn't pull up on there I have it on mine people can look at it on our I just didn't want to I just didn't want people to think that I misrepresented something it's spot-on with with there's no apartments there so just wanted to clarify that for the record and mayor will note that the applicant is here if we have specific questions you'd like sure so any any do we have any other questions for staff okay then this is a public hearing if no just answer the council member was this question about there is a PD overlay that was recently adopted which allows council to make amendments in this type of situation where there's a straight zoning request to address compatibility or other concerns and you could move to have that PD overlay done right now at the time one caveat to that has to be less intense which I believe taking away multifamily would be less intense than these what was notified for this which is the MN district so all that to say yes the City Council can make a condition on this request you'd have to change it to a request a motion to approve a PD overlay on the property for the underlying use without multifamily okay can I follow up on that mayor yes sir okay I don't know what you meant when you said if it's less than ten what was that less intense so we gave notice to the whole world less intense less intense okay yeah so I think this happened once before before we had this where we were going to try to approve something that wasn't asked for in other words there's MN zoning request and if we say hey you've got to you know we're gonna prove it for PD that the applicant now I'm not sure that the applicant would do this but that the applicant could say hey I don't accept that and it would either fail or it would be a super majority I remember one time I don't know who it was I can't remember who it was he used to be a planner a long time ago and he came down and he we went to change something he slapped of his written notice of we reject that and on the podium and so we had to so is that is that what your understanding is if we change it that the applicant has an opportunity to reject that and it requires something different you're not aware of that no there's nothing like that in the code that sticks to this new concept of okay so that probably got changed out of their council of their own will desire wanted to hear from the applicant to know what their thoughts are okay that'd be up to the council but you're you're in charge of this you can dictate the zoning at this point okay okay and I want to say I want to thank staff before I recognize the next speaker I want to thank staff that is that is helpful to understand that Jason property very helpful but but just real quick that I didn't point out and I'm looking at it on the map I mean we've all received emails about Windsor and Bonnie Bray that intersection that four-way stop I know there's a signal like coming at some point but my goodness to get out of a multifamily on that corner just add that in your mind and it I would need yeah I just can't I mean and I take and thank you Councilmember Watts for bringing up the point that you can't add a stipulation on there I take that point and that's important and I'm okay with all the other uses but if I'm not okay with all the uses then then that guides my my decision and and so I thank you for that that insight Councilmember Meltzer that's it okay mayor pro tem it doesn't like me tonight I I I would like some clarification because I had some confusion I thought that we passed a new PD change where there was base zoning PD and then full normal complex PD and base zoning PD was for instance the parcel just to the south might be PDMN which means it's MN plus we had some restrictions and I I swear I thought we talked about that in DCRC am I just losing it so I don't actually have a you know I'm not asking for that but if the rest of council needs a tool where they want base zoning plus I thought we had a tool for base zoning plus that is what Mack was referencing earlier that's the PD overlay where you can have a base zoning district with whatever restrictions are needed for compatibility purposes okay I appreciate that I just wanted to float that for those councillors that wanted to consider that I'm not asking for that okay so if there's no other questions no public comments one more time anyone it's a public comment want to speak think I closed it already maybe I didn't but it was closed already and now that I think about it because I acknowledge you okay I'll take a motion mayor yes sir I think we heard that the applicant is here is that right is there applicant did the applicant wish to speak because well yeah so I didn't the public hearing so I don't know okay we will come as an applicant I'm assuming they can talk but that was that queue for the public comment does anyone wish to speak that right in that window was was what I was going for but come on down you got what 20 minutes yep okay so we will reopen the public hearing on item E and we can set the timer yeah well thank you my name is Jose Carrillo I'm representing Frank the owner of the property initially I didn't really have anything to add to what Sean presented earlier but I guess the biggest concern for Mr. hud spit is having mixed use at that intersection of Windsor and Bonnie Bray I do want to highlight that we are just rezoning 1.7 acres that are not adjacent to that intersection there are ways north of that intersection the property that's at the corner is currently makes use or mn so just keeping that in mind the property already on the corner is the current zoning does allow for that type of use I know there are apartment use along the Bonnie Bray further to the north there's town homes just north of razor ranch so there there's there's pretty compatible land uses in the area and as Sean mentioned Bonnie Bray is I don't think they've actively started construction but they've they actually acquired the right away they need so they're pretty close to increasing the capacity on Bonnie Bray and there's any other questions well so yeah I'll take the opportunity and please for the record no I didn't know who owned the property to the south and I made my statement and you know so it stands alone like I understand the subject property and just focusing on that gave me heartburn even not knowing who owns other parts so I spoke before I knew so a hundred percent clear but my question is do you see that the same you see town homes and multifamily apartment style as the same it same use same traffic same well we function on the ground we did have to do a trip generation for for that site that we are rezoning and basically it was such low impact that we didn't have to provide a full traffic impact analysis so as far as seeing the compatible more town homes and multifamily I have no comment to that okay so I understand I'll just I'll just note though I take your point that you don't see those the same I take your point that you don't have to do the trip count my question was though on the ground see cuz that that I after your projects in the ground I won't there'll be someone that sends an email right that says how did you let this go through and so I'm just asking forward-looking because and that's a different P&Z has a look at just the zoning that's that's what they're tasked with as a council obviously you know we have to look at all of it so looking at all of it I'm asking you and your expert opinion on the ground like use case an apartment complex versus town homes you can't get as many units if you're talking town homes on that space so in my mind it's less traffic it's a different use case than multifamily but I'm asking you if I'm wrong because I trust your opinion so the special case with this subject property is that we are heavily encumbered with the property to the west has an existing gas well on it and basically the city has a 500 feet clearance zone of any building so it does encompass a big portion of our property that we cannot develop we can't have buildings on so with this property because of that requirement we we can't fully build out what based on the what zoning allows got it okay thank you but thank you that's that's that's good information I appreciate that any other questions for the for the applicant okay thank you very much I appreciate it great insight thank you okay any other comments it's open it's a public hearing anyone can speak seeing none so no sudden movements I'll close a public hearing I'll take a motion Mayor Pro Tem I move approval Councilman Bird motion by Mayor Pro Tem Bec second by Councilman Bird any other discussion seeing none let's vote on the screen and that passes four to three oh oh there you go I forgot about that it so that fails takes us to our next item item for individual consideration 6a ID 2 3 2 7 4 consider approval of a resolution of the City Council of the City of Denton Texas placing a proposal on the September 26 2000 oh yeah on the 2 September 26 2023 City Council public meeting agenda to adopt the 2023 tax rate that will exceed the lower exceed the lower of the no new revenue tax rate or the voter approval tax rate good evening mayor City Council Cassie Ogden assistant city manager this item is for the max tax rate so it's the published rate that City Council may approve for fi 24 so this doesn't prohibit you from approving a different tax rate it's just publishing the maximum that you can approve so just a quick review the appraised values came in about 15 percent higher than the previous year average taxable home value increased from 307,000 to 344,000 so our no new revenue rate is 40 a little over 49 cents per hundred dollar valuation our voter approval rate is 57 cents per hundred dollars evaluation fi 24 our proposed rate and the city manager's proposed budget that you saw on August 5th is a little over 56 cents so keeping the same tax rate as the current fiscal year the published max tax rate in the resolution is 56 and a half cents this is just giving us flexibility during the budget process in case anything changes between now and budget adoption this has been our standard standard practice for several years is to publish to give us a little bit higher than what we're proposing the tax rate to be and so with that the public hearings on the tax rate and the budget are scheduled for September 19th in addition we have another budget follow-up work session scheduled for September 12th and as we discussed earlier balancing act will be up and we'll provide council with updates based on the feedback that we received from citizen comments and with that I'll take any questions councilmember Meltzer yeah thank you I think it's I'm accustomed to this procedure I think it's potentially confusing to some people who plug in what is the purpose of having a vote that just sets the maximum rather than just have the vote when we do on what the tax rate will be just in case anything changes in our tax calculations we did receive our certified calculation from the county but sometimes the comptroller puts out addendums to the tax rate calculation sheets that's happened to us a couple of years ago and so we we try to add some buffer just in case that happens so if we if we if we didn't do this and something changed coming down from you know another governmental body with that prevent us from responding appropriately later I'm not a difficulty with it I just don't want people to be confused like they voted on a tax rate it was a very high number you know so we're doing a special legal thing but I'm not just not a hundred percent clear what we get out of it um I just I think it gives you flexibility just in case there's not any more confusion later on that you know council adopted or publish a tax rate that was higher than or lower than what they actually adopted I think that's the main reason okay thanks okay any other questions for staff seeing none oh council watch yeah just real quick for clarification we're gonna have another vote yes with the budget to set the actual tax rate this is just something prescribed by law that we have to you know so we're not voting on the tax rate we're gonna be charging we're gonna have that vote since September something like 26 okay thank you okay any other questions seeing none Councilman Melzer yes I move approval Councilman McGee second motion by Councilman Melzer second by Councilmember McGee discussion seeing none let's vote on the screen net pass is 7-0 takes us to item B ID 2 3 1 4 9 0 consider adoption of the ordinance of the City of Denton Texas Home Rule Municipal Corporation authorizing the city manager to execute a contract with Oscar Renda contracting that's correct yeah good evening council Cole tanker city with capital projects and I'll be presenting this construction contract with Oscar Renda construction for another I-35 utility project the project overview is the project's gonna go from the merge or the split of the I-35 East and West up to University Drive and just past it a little bit US 380 as you can see here we're gonna be moving some water lines and wastewater lines and these are the actual locations of those lines that are going to be proposed to be moved this is all in support of the widening of the I-35 textile and this is a hundred percent reimbursable project will be the project will consist of about 10,000 linear feet of pipe that will be moved between both water and wastewater and abandonments and it like I said it'll go from the split up to 380 we had a this is an invitation for bid and we had three potential bidders from the pre-qualified list that was approved before but we only had two that actually bid on this project which was Oscar Renda contracting ink and Mountain Cascade Oscar Renda came at the lowest bid at just over 17 million dollars the project schedule this project was the design was completed in May and it's been rushed a little bit because of the text dot and public utility board was yesterday and it was approved and today will be canceled and we'll do a partial notice to proceed quick right after this if it's approved and then we'll move into the actual notice of pre proceed sometime in September and we estimate this project we put a very short time frame of 180 days and we estimate this project to be final completion second quarter in 2024 we recommend the approval of this contract with Oscar under contracting at just over 17 million with a five percent contingency bringing the not to exceed amount over 18 million do you have any questions okay questions for staff any questions seeing none and this is all in prep for the widening i-35 all those things tied together just moving utilities I'm tracking right yeah I got it okay councilman Holland mr. mayor I'd move them the acceptance of the contract to Oscar Renda okay mayor pro tem I second the item okay we have a motion and a second before we vote I do have coal right that's right yes I have a gift you give me elephant you give me an elephant last time sir I rubbed it okay I want to make sure it's on my desk yeah I don't want to take it yeah did you have an afro last time you before there you go that's what threw me off oh well that doesn't that doesn't help me you have a different shirt on that's what it was that's what threw me off okay you may have been out of town that may be that's right yes yeah well very good okay let's vote on the screen thank you and that passes you thank you very much yeah they gave you a tough one man that uh 35 especially at the split that that widening project is gonna be unbearable I mean it's gonna be it'll be great once it's done but getting there thank you okay gets us to item C that's ID two three one five two four consider adoption of ordinance of the city of Denton Texas at home rule municipal corporation authorizing the city manage X due to contract with Sunday construction and that the whole last conversation is going to be really weird when it's trying to translate it in Spanish so as they're following along and like what in the world go ahead good evening I'm Robin Davis the project manager with capital projects and I'm here to get your approval to get Bonnie Bray phase 3 under construction so the project overview this is the final phase in the body brace south project the corridor from 35 over to 35 w vintage area so with this one goes from 35 15 15 over to Rose Lawn it will widen from a two-lane rural section to a four-lane urban we do have some minimal utility relocation with this project and we also have five foot sidewalks or ten foot side path on either side of the road for the complete length of the project so we received competitive sealed proposals for this project on May 24th we had three proposals that were received and we did perform the evaluation required for the CSP process and the scoring criteria for the evaluation process are listed below and it just so happens that pricing was one of those criteria so not only was sent the low bidder but they also scored the highest on the other other criteria as well the project schedule for this is once it's awarded tonight if that happens then we will issue a notice to proceed we will host a virtual community pre-construction meeting and actually that's going to move out a week due to the holiday that's coming up so we'll actually probably start construction on September 11th and then we have in the car in the project we offered a 24-month substantial completion timeline and a 30-month final completion timeline so we expect to reach substantial completion where the roadway is operating as planned in September 2025 and with that the city recommends approving the contract was sent for a little over 40 million okay thank you and a real quick question are we we're communicating with UNT because that's right around football season yeah they actually have a betterment in this project that they're funding okay got it they have a betterment in this project that they're funding it was it was an alternate that was placed in the bid documents for a empty duct bank that they they perceive for their future baseball complex that's going to go across the street so they're paying for the entirety of the cost of that project so they don't have to tear up our brand-new road in a few years to install a duct bank to get all their communications across the street and then we're using trip grant money yes we did we did request grant trip funds to be used on the section from 1515 to Willowood there's actually several DCTA stops in that section and so it it met all of the criteria to qualify for the trip funding so we will receive it's reimbursable we have to spend it first but we we do have five million to use of our trip funds for the improvements it's not just sidewalks it's also a roadway oh great good good yes Councilor Watts oh I'm sorry Mayor Pro Temp and then Councilor Watts thank you am I wrong is the backup different than this presentation yes I was not aware of this new template for the presentation so the presentation that's in the backup material is a little different than this one and and I don't I want to be careful here and set the stage I don't really have any issues but could I see the slide with the comparisons again because I didn't I didn't I didn't get a chance to fully review that sure it's me that one yeah let me blow that up real quick on the no that I'm good thank thank you for showing me that Councilor Watts yeah mayor I think after hearing a comment I recused myself on a development agreement that the city had with part of this project so I'm gonna recuse myself on this as well and if I could get legal to draft it this just it just came to my mind so I'm gonna step out and let you guys continue the deliberation okay okay got it all right any other questions seeing none I'll take a motion Councilor Holland I was hoping that would be finished by September 2nd but I guess it won't be nonetheless I will move that it be approved you should have to recuse as many games as you go to I was thinking the same I was thinking the same thing keep that to yourself sir makes it easier for you to park well we did finish North Texas Boulevard you can always go in the back way yeah Council member I second okay motion by Council member Holland second by Council member discussion I'm assuming Chris doesn't want to speak because he's not here and sorry but anyway let's vote on the screen that passes six to zero with one recuse thank you very much appreciate it takes us to item D ID 2 3 1 5 6 3 consider adoption of ordinance of the city of Denton Texas amending schedules of the fees for public works inspection contained in ordinance number 2 0 1 3 2 5 2 3 2 good evening mayor and City Council West McBride public works and sections manager this year the Texas legislature passed House Bill 3492 which prohibits us from charging our fees based upon the cost of construction and also specified that those fees are to be an hourly based based on the estimate actual time of our employees from those services currently we have two fees to with ordinances that set fees for public works inspections the first one was set in 2013 and our fee was set at 3.5 percent of the total cost of construction which is now something that we were not allowed to do it also set our overtime inspection fees and our original right away inspection fees for right away permits the second ordinance accompanied the right away construction management ordinance and set some additional fees in there the new ordinance we're proposing would bring us in line with what the House Bill 34 92 specifies it establishes a inspection fee at an hourly rate it also kind of cleans up and brings in some of the fees that were in two ordinances into this one including the right away inspection fees and it also updates our fees according to the fee study that we had done this year by matrix insulting currently currently we have the 3.5 and the overtime inspection free of $135 the new fees are according to matrix that was established at these rates and also for the right away inspection fees they will some of them also were going up a few of them actually were going down and I'll stand for any questions okay thank you very much mayor pro tem thank you mr. mayor I asked this in the in the questions for backup but and I'm okay with setting initial rates to kind of do the best we can to kind of get back to where we were with the old method but I think it's gonna be really important for us to do our oversight if you show us the same project with the old rates and the new rates and and that way we we can you know show us for real on a real project that it's gonna be it's gonna give us the needs of the department yeah so we actually pulled some preparation for this we pulled some of our older projects that have already accepted it that we had some time assumptions already in there so what we're seeing is if we can if we can add it there you go there you go can we zoom for some of our large larger projects we are actually coming in a little bit under some of our subdivisions our residential subdivisions others that we're seeing there's not very much change in it a lot of it goes in that our time we see a little bit of increase on some of the commercial jobs because they take just as much time as the residential but they already paid a little bit less in fee so like lane rail yard that we just sent an acceptance letter on the off-site they completed it in 40 days and it only went up from 458 dollars that they paid and with the 3.5 up to 848 okay and so I love this thank you so much for preparing this is exactly what I want you know some real-world projects where we see the difference and it looks like it is actually a mix of them especially that Providence Square was really different but so that's not saving anybody or at least not saving them any money so thank you legislature so I this is the kind of number I need to see thank you so much okay any other questions I'll take a motion mayor pro tem I move approval of these new rates councilman Watts Sam okay motion by mayor pro tem second by councilman Watts any other discussion before we do that last time you presented to us that you have a beard I've had a beard for quite a few years but yeah but when you presented to us last I have not presented I just want to make sure for I stood up again don't take it you're here for welcome so what we do is we have a little token of our appreciation so you always remember us and remember your first time presenting to us so thank you very much yes yeah no where's where's home for you where you I was born and raised here in Denton outstanding good actually McBride's music upon on the shot yes sir yeah that was one of my cousins outstanding man yeah good that's fantastic good I do not remember a name I was always around Larry I was not around his daughter he has a great memory I don't know anything I knew about Larry's kids was he kept telling us he had to go up on prices at the pawn shop to pay for their college he was one of my pals okay let's thank you very much let's vote on the screen right it all runs together that passes 7-0 thank you that takes us to our last item ID 2 3 1 5 6 6 consider adoption of ordinance of the City of Denton sit ordinance of the City Council of the City of Denton Texas calling an election to be held November 7 2023 within the city within said city on the question of issuance of 309 million five hundred ninety thousand dollars in ad valorem tax-supported bonds for streets drainage parks public safety affordable housing making provision for the car conduct of the mayor I need a minute I'm trying to find my presentation I think yeah there was some I found it sorry about that Cassie Arden assistant city manager here for the calling of the bond item so on April 4th council established the special citizens bond advisory committee which was 40 people the committee met a total of seven times between May and July and provided a recommendation for council consideration we've had two work sessions in July and August to review the committee's recommendations you can see the list of projects we talked about the council gave direction to increase the funding amount for the South Branch Library from what this the special citizens bond committee recommended as well as including Roodell as part of the Roodell Mingo quiet zone project and then the committee did recommend 2% of vertical construction projects so which is a little over three million dollars the resolution or I'm sorry the ordinance before you tonight includes five propositions so proposition A is for streets and that includes one project the Roodell Mingo quiet zone prop B is drainage and flood control proposition C is the park system 148 million dollars and then proposition D is public safety with fire stations number five six include and including the animal services expansion proposition E is affordable housing for 15 with a total of three hundred nine million five hundred ninety thousand dollars and with that take any questions so I have questions my math is rough but City Hall West we're allocated 17 million eight hundred seventy six thousand dollars and staff proposed it will have maybe 15 to 20 offices out of that yes so that would be if we have 15 offices my math says that's 1 million one hundred ninety two thousand dollars per office could you double check me I'm right I ran it a couple of times and then 20 offices that cost would be eight hundred ninety three thousand dollars eight hundred and thirty three the eight hundred eight hundred thirty three dollars per office yes and so I just I don't understand that and so I want people to understand why I'm saying no and and it's in entire context because when you look at that in that context and then if you look at line item 12 it's a question I ask about city facilities we address City Hall East that's been renovated with the police headquarter then the service center has been renovated the police substations new the DME campus is proposed new and then City Hall at 1 million dollar City Hall West at 1 million dollars per office is being proposed south branch library new senior center fire stations animal services are renovated the only the only building that's not being addressed it has no plan and has the most employees is this building and we're at 107 percent capacity is that right yes that's correct I did just want to clarify on City Hall West okay yeah it's only 5,000 square feet of that facility that we're proposing to use for office space the majority of the building renovation will be for the theater and the event space correct and so the theater is not helping us with with office space yeah 5,000 square feet will go to providing additional administrative space for the areas that are currently over capacity or occupancy right but I it's and so for me do we have a planned use for that theater space like is it like community use yeah yeah I mean it just we don't have a plan we don't know who's gonna we don't we don't have anyone that's gonna operate it right the direction that we worked with in November was that it would be run by the city so parks and rec would run it and it'd be available for rentals for any type of community activity right and so I'm just responding to the conversation that the per square foot cost and I'll run that math while other people are talking but it matters not it's gonna be astronomical so I really don't have to people understand what they're doing it's just 5,000 square feet by 17 million dollars is not a good number per square foot when we have a City Hall with no plan with at a 107 percent capacity so I can't get on board with a million dollars per office that just makes I mean if we have a problem people spoke on a on a library for 50 million that's at least 40,000 square feet so it's eight times and people had a hard time with that so yeah I just I think it's so irresponsible I I'm making a final plea to I know councilmember bird was supportive in the work session I'll put forward the number I'm looking for someone to two other people to get on board with at least what what what DME is doing and so I have notes that I'm gonna touch on from today from our conversation today the parallels that I identified from there were zero and all I'm asking for from my peers is to let the voters decide that's all I'm asking for not asking for action other than to let the voters decide and here's what DME identified and they got unanimous support DME I unified covered parking for the vehicles imagine if we had covered parking vans for our kids that are going to summer camps and now those vans are parked out you'll see them those listening drive by Civic Center and you'll see the vans that we ride the summer kids in sitting out in elements versus in a parking garage then DME is at eighty one point six percent the city hall is at 100% DME has a plan that was approved by this body this body will not the majority of this body will not allow the voters to vote on a new meeting spaces for council code issues at DME this building has code issues construction costs going up this building has will have the same problem this DME is backed by tax dollars that didn't give anyone any that it's it's the rate but ultimately it's backed by tax dollars no complaints but complaints here when it came to address in the 107 percent in this building the DME pointed out it requires a rate increase this will require potentially a tax increase same thing all backed by the same tax dollars but I can't get four people to say this is important enough to send to the voters then it goes to security concerns for DME security concerns here go back and look at the old pictures City Hall didn't have used to have a gate around it City Hall hadn't had people break into it City Hall didn't have a metal detector so it's obvious security issues but then talked about synergy DME talked about synergy that's what we're trying to address as well they proposed 75 million I'm asking just to let the voters vote on 50 million they said they have it they have to design it next year I'm asking for the same this of putting it on the bond would allow the city manager to then go and and price a design for to address the the over over capacity issues we have talked about vehicles talked about yeah I mean it's it's it's plain and clear we have to do something and I I'm asking for the voters to have a say so I don't know why this body is is a majority of this body won't at least let the voters have a say so if it doesn't pass then great that you have nothing to worry about but at least you let the voters here and we have a plan for the one building that doesn't have a plan where there's major employees it's just an embarrassment for me and that we can't take care of our staff better 90% of the people in the United States the older people in the United States I think that's the stat I was reading have diabetes diabetes issues and we have we've talked about insurance costs going up everyone's trying to stay healthy and our offering here at the City Hall is microwave dinners it's just unbelievable I'm looking for four people two others to say you know what that's right we shouldn't spend vote to spend a million dollars on office and ignore the City Hall needs for more office we just we shouldn't do that I've had a epiphany and I thought better of it we'll see councillor Watts thank you yeah I may address your your comments maybe later on but a couple of things on City Hall West that's assuming if we stick to the plan of providing community space and all these kind of things it was decided five years ago which a lot of things have changed so I mean the bond isn't the bond does not restrict us to 5,000 square feet of office space that can be a separate council decision as that project comes forward that's correct we brought we hired a consultant five years ago you did have the committee right which they talked about potential uses and then there wasn't really a decision out of that about a year and a half ago the city contracted with architecture architect sis to come in and look at the plans and we brought back in November here's potential uses of those buildings which is what we were working off for the bond program but again it doesn't lock you into that if you want to change our mind on the programming I'm not sure how much additional office space that is something we can look at because we did have some constraints with the building since it's historical yeah okay yeah my major concerns is not so much with the projects and I'll comment on the City Hall comments here later my concern is with the bond with the bond ballot language and the grouping and primarily first of all is looking through the ordinance and we've got the art component which is two percent of I think was it vertical construction construction but that I guess that doesn't have to appear as a sec as a separate item or is it included in each one it's included and proposition C and D and it is called out the amount is called out in each proposition that it's included in the amount specific for public art but it's not in the ballot language it's in the narrative of the ordinance ordinance correct and that's one thing I want to ask bond council at some point is about the language on the ballot because my big concern and not concern I shouldn't say that I mean I have my comments are in no way in opposition to the projects or the cost of the projects mine is concerned on the groupings because and the primary one is the park system improvements because that includes the library which is 50 million it includes the senior center which is I forgot what 46 or 48 what is that 46 and City Hall West I think those are just very different and and I know that there's been a concern that well if there's too many propositions that the voters you know are either gonna get confused or there's gonna be a greater chance that they fail I take a different a different approach and that is to me it's more transparent and it's it's not creating that cognitive dissonance it's it's reducing it to its minimum impact of hey I want to vote for this but I really don't want to vote for this and so I'm sort of stuck and so that was one of the questions for the bond council is I don't think these groupings are what is that there's no other opportunity to do it differently but I don't know what would be allowed if we split out like City Hall West the library and the senior center and do different I may could agree to the library and senior center maybe being together but I it's gonna be very difficult for me to vote when these are all lumped together like that so and plus the public art component is not in the language and I know that the legislature struggled with this they wanted to almost at one point include all of it in the in the in the the ballot language I mean to really put in a lot of detail so that that's really my concern I'll go ahead and address the the main City Hall issue or request as I said earlier when I looked at the bond committee and mayor I understand my thought is and you're right comparing it to the to the DME DME is not being taken to the voters we can make that decision on our own as we could with that my concern is I mean I know it said well let's give the voters a chance if the voters vote against it then so be it and that's all good well now we can't do anything for three years because of the legislature so I think there's a path forward that can get that done and can get it done probably quicker without that risk so and I'm more than willing to look at the same process and the same type of financing that DME has looked at and that has brought forward to us so I'm not opposed to the idea and I'm not opposed to even some funding I just it's difficult for me to do it with when nobody on the bond committee that we all pointed so and that's just me I mean if it if it gets on the ballot there's no heartburn for me my biggest concern is the groupings because I think it doesn't give the voters necessarily an opportunity to really parse out what they're wanting to do and I know that's not a popular opinion I know that's not something that you know it's that and it's not a not a you know anything to write I know staff would rather probably not have that and I understand why and and that's okay that's just my own personal thought and I think I've been consistent with that thought all the way through the deliberation so those are just my comments I mean I'm not saying I'm not sure what I'm saying except putting that out there for the rest of the council members to consider thank you mayor yeah mayor Pro Tem. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Councilor Watts I really appreciate you bringing forth a lot of those items I share with you some of those those concerns and and I I think we do have the opportunity you'll recall that you know I we just had a huge what was the word we had a huge hullabaloo over green space and last time I I voted against the the adding green space to be consistent for the reasons that you brought up and that Cassie brought up is there's if we if we put it on and it's in its bails we can't address it but if if we address it in next year's budget we can be smart and and dedicated and put it in in ways that that match things and at the same time I want to be consistent with what we brought to the bond committee you know which you know that wasn't and this was and they voted this down that said I think we have an opportunity to address these spaces to address green spaces to address office spaces I'm really glad that Christine brought up the idea that that you know we're gonna renovate this building with with the idea of getting it in use again after years and years and years of neglect and potentially at some point get it back on the tax rolls which is the long-term goal but we could use it for office space we could use the South Side Library's office space for this morning's discussion there's there's an opportunity to play musical chairs with some of our buildings that keep those buildings in service would don't require us to build or marginally renovate and and stay truer to the will that we saw coming out of the bond committee and and you know being and being consistent so I really appreciate council watts bringing up a lot of those points I agree with him hopefully the the sky doesn't fall when we hear that that council watts and I are in pretty good agreement on that it's the right first sign of the apocalypse I do have and I would like to to ask could could staff or counsel you know partly we've heard a little bit of it in prior discussions but could you briefly summarize what again why why we put it in these particular categories and why we are aggregating them together as opposed to say having four of type B or four of type D or there may not be that many projects within those but you know what what is the pros and cons of and I think counselor watts touched on confusion but if if someone could address what our limitations are here in this public session so I'm gonna ask Greg Shaker to come up and kind of address your questions and then also comes over what hi Greg Shaker with McCall Parkerson Horton bond council for the city and I apologize for my voice I got the allergy thing going on and it's gone down into my into my chest the groupings I'm comfortable that each project in each group is part of the same purpose parks which you're addressing is a very broad purpose there's all kinds of types of projects that fits under that category that being said there's no reason you can you can't parse out each project into a separate bond proposition there's no limit on that but the approach I think that was taken was to combine all the projects that fit under the same general purpose in the same bond proposition and ballot language I'm comfortable that was in the what's in the ordinance conforms to state law but there's no reason you can't add language to it if if y'all wanted public art called out in the in the ballot language itself we can certainly do that to you so American have a follow-up sure so just to make sure I understood what you said I mean clearly as it's presented it conforms but if we wanted to split a couple out and have them as their own single bond proposition could do that and or if we wanted to add to each of the ballot language just the component of public art because there is a come I guess and maybe you can't answer this but or maybe you can the amount of money that's listed in each of the ballot languages that that's including the public art component is that correct it is okay total amount includes the public art component the smaller number for public art later in the proposition basically limits the use of that bond proposition to that amount for public art okay okay for that purpose okay thank you thank you mayor councilman Beck you have more thank you mr. I appreciate that yeah no III is I understand and please correct me these categories are ones either that we inherit from state legislature or from the Attorney General's office so you know we any any proposal has to go into one of these categories is that correct I would say that these categories are have been developed over the years like what type of project fits into the broader category like parks or public safety the most recent statutory changes really more strictly enforce the idea that you can only have a single purpose in each bond proposition but it can be the bond proposition can be a general purpose like parks and so how we approach these using parks as an example we say it's for the approval of improvements to parks which include the active adult center the the whole list that we have in there okay I appreciate that and then I guess my mine sort of last was comp question is in in general you know by having a common purpose does does that improve or are confused voter understanding do you know lots of discussion both both ways so I think especially when you get into the election consultants you know they have probably stronger opinions about that but like I said I've heard the argument argue for both sides so I appreciate that thank you miss city manager Greg I'm concerned too I'm just gonna be honest with you if you're grouping everything under park systems a park is different from a recreation center it's different from a library and it's different from a City Hall West you can say that all of them center around park staff are gonna use the building but that that is not accurate I'm just being honest with you that is a park is an outside facility period a recreation center is an inside facility a library is an inside facility librarians park staff aren't in a library so when you label a bond item as a park or park systems we are confusing the we're confusing the community honestly and coming from parks and recreation I'm telling you that will confuse our community members because they'll think everything's in a park and a park is an outside facility not an inside facility I definitely understand that there's case law in Texas that says differently a park is very very broad park and rec is a kind of the category you use so but you know many cities split out cultural facilities from parks to like event space or libraries they put it under like a cultural bond proposition but like I said earlier I'm comfortable that all the projects in that category fit under that category under state law that doesn't mean it's not as you know your point is it might be confusing I'm concerned is confusing and I I've been involved without how many bonds and we usually weren't so specific we were if it was a library a park a recreation center was called quality of life a quality of life bond that had the specifics underneath it which was a recreation center a parks trails whatever it's called quality of life public safety but not a park system which leads people to think it's a part of a park system a library is not part of a park system and neither is a senior center neither is a City Hall West so I understand you're quoting case law but having worked in other cities like the city of Austin we didn't get so specific as to the topic as it was as to make sure those groupings made sense under what would be considered public safety quality of life environmental is whatever that roads drainage things like that so I'm just concerned we're going to confuse our voters and there's not there's not a need to call out specific projects under bond proposition but I understood that y'all wanted to do that in this particular instance so okay councilman Melter yeah let me continue the shaking of the roof here yeah I think councilmember Watts is spot-on a number of points first of all City Hall West has been kicking around empty for a long time and it really makes sense to get to get that addressed and I'm glad we finally biting the bullet to put it on the bond proposition because it just wasn't getting done and then we learned over the course of preparing for our meeting today that there is a facility master plan being developed and this is not in contradiction even slightly with the mayor's concerns that it's it's very much in agreement with the concerns that that needs to be addressed so it's both true that bond committee didn't was not persuaded by we know what was presented for for City Hall and it's true that there's a big need and I think that the methodical way to do it comprehensively to take into account the fact that some buildings are going to be are going to be made redundant potentially or as a course of this so that we can rethink these spaces you know I think that's just a more reasonable way to do it and avoids the potential problem of having the general public react the same way the bond committee did and say no and then you're stuck for three years so I think that all makes good sense I'm also very I take very much to heart that very common sensical point that the things that are in the so-called park system proposition are commonly won't be understood as park system I'm intrigued by the idea of just rather than break it all out into eight pieces that is some merit but the idea of calling that all quality of life so if streets drainage and flood control quality of life public safety affordable housing has some appeal although just thinking out loud a little bit here if City Hall West ends up going back to office space which is what it was you know then are you stuck because it got passed under quality of life so you know so maybe that needs to get that that needs to get pulled out like I'm very happy with the idea pretty broad categories and quality of life is broad enough that it makes you need to read what's in it but if City Hall West doesn't fit in that I mean I'm inclined to make a motion let's offer a motion unless mayor you don't want us to do that yet no as long as you understand it's not gonna foreclose conversation and that sort of thing yeah nor would sickening it right I mean we have to die like after that I never know I have to check and see if I get corrected well let me take a shot at it so I'd like to move approval of the motion excuse me approval of the proposal but renaming proposition C quality of life and segregating out from call proposition C City Hall West as an independent item anything in there I can't do bond council just to clarify the renovation of City Hall West is under the parks category because it's gonna be renovated into event space and administrative space for the parks and rec department that's why it was put under there okay so I understand understanding that I'm you know I'm asking you to kind of respond to the deliberation it says hey looking at our comprehensively at our space needs and our closed indoor space needs you know that that that may those purposes may look different when we look at all of our space needs comprehensively that's so so that would be a reason to pull it out of that it is I would not the the term quality of life is used by a lot of cities but that's more of a gets marketing advertising it's a communication term but if you look at their bond propositions that the purpose is parks or cultural facilities like libraries event centers typically fall under a cultural facilities purpose quality of life is not legally not a real thing leaves it doesn't fit for a public purpose for by lecture you can certainly communicate into the voters you can call a quality of life projects as most many many cities do okay I was responding to you know what I heard up here so mayor thanks for indulging me letting me kind of feel my way through this I alternatively would it be acceptable to segregate proposition C into park system and public and another item called public buildings public buildings is too general yeah I'm not sure what to do that so I'm withdrawing my motion till we kind of maybe need to talk about this and sort it out I do I am consistent I do recognize that park system is not revealing enough your earlier suggestion of splitting out the renovation of City Hall West into a separate proposition from see that that would be fine oh it's so-called the rest park system is all you could just that proposition would be for city hall west okay there we go so if you'd like me to mayor I'm going to restate the motion and so I move approval of the of the proposal however I would segregate out of proposition C renovation of City Hall West into a separate item still leaving the remainder to be called proposition C park system and the other thing I think has been discussed yet that I would point out in using part measure C as the example when you have that list of projects in there and down the road cost very you know from one to another you especially since we've called out all the projects in that in that bond proposition you do have to construct those projects but you can vary from the cost that you have up on there you can allocate between the projects that are all within the same proposition you can't do that if you're if they're in separate propositions just want to make sure you're all we're aware of the one advantage one of the advantages of a broader proposition can I just clarify your because public art is currently included in proposition C so the park system proposition would you want to include some portion of public art in the City Hall West proposition yes my intention would have been that the 2% of vertical construction goes goes with it and and you know I don't know I'm just since you give me like 30 seconds more floor I'm not a hundred percent sure I'm right I hear what you're saying about the benefits of being able to reallocate between is there something else that isn't quality of life and that isn't park system that would express what this collective is because I don't think anybody outside of I don't know some specialist thinks City Hall West is in a park it's wouldn't so I'm content with the idea of the benefits of being able to reallocate but I'm I'm responding to the desire to not see misleading to the public you know most cities try to do that through the communications to the voters before the election on the particular projects one thing that we can do would be to put specific projects in the ballot language as well there's no restriction on undoing that typically we draft the ballot language to be concise but there's no limit on the length and so the ballot language when the voters are in the booth checking it off could list out all the projects under that particular measure could could could it be called park park system and something that would evoke buildings like does it have to be just two words and then and also you know do the more granular ballot language that lists some of the projects we could call it parks and recreation facilities and then the category but that would preclude us from then redeveloping City Hall West for use as other office space if it's not parks and recreation it would it's the limiting factor all right then I'm gonna stick with the motion as expressed and and yes to respond to Cassie's question the City Hall West component has meant to include the related 2% of vertical construction for public art so that's the motion I wonder if anyone paid attention to all that no but somebody did I mean it's like eight different iterations I can't I have I'm making notes why I'm not gonna vote for it so happy to restate if you want no it's it's fine so is that everything for you okay is there a second let's just get that out of the way so that I don't get yelled at somebody mayor Pro Tem yeah I'm gonna restate it cuz cuz I want to make sure I know what I'm about to second and that is if I'm understanding that is that you're you're leaving the proposal you you're proposing to leave it as is but split the item the project see and remove City Hall West into its own C2 with all the concurrent budget of that project including a public art into sort of us a second with whatever name is suitable for that proposal and did you were you including the the list of projects or not because that was also floated I frankly didn't have the impression that that had to be part of the motion that's with that but I'm supportive of I did talk about that and and if it helps for that to be part of the motion yes I did intend that we would also be more granular in listing the projects in the bow language okay you second all that I think so okay Councilman Holler thought you forgot about me explain to me again I guess because all this makes very very good sense to me explain to me again why these can't be in single voting issues why can't we have 13 I grouped them in 13 what could be more clear you know if you want to vote for the Oakland drainage you vote for it if you want to vote for affordable housing you vote for it if you want to vote for the the the historic City Hall you vote for it if you like a like a buffet why like why won't that work that's that's allowed you can list each project as a separate bond proposition exactly it's exactly what I'm saying and it couldn't be more clear yeah you're voting on each particular project yes I think some would argue there's voter fatigue well rather rather than grouping these things in together into some vague thing that that it's a park it's a building we don't know what in the world it is you just do a smorgasbord and choose the ones you want and and reject the ones you don't it does limit us when projects come in either higher most of the time higher than what we projected so for instance for the 20 next 2014 bond program the bond oversight committee has removed several of the projects because as we got to the end of the program we weren't able to complete the projects so the money was reallocated to other projects within those same propositions because they had kind of the same use so for instance roadways if you if you did each project individually you would not have that capability you would have to do the project and then if the project came over budget we would have to issue CEOs to complete it I heard you I don't understand that if if if item if item one is a dollar and item two is is a dollar an item three is a dollar and you vote for it then that then they then they ought to end up costing three bucks so sometimes you know things happen because this is a six-year bond program and I don't have a crystal ball about what's gonna happen for instance on quiet zones if the railroad if we have complications with the railroad let's say and we're not able to complete the project in the way that we thought originally it was scoped and designed we are limited now with what we can do with that funding because there's no other projects that we can use it on why why then in that example would you just not issue the bond you could do that I'm just saying now that voters have voted on something you're not gonna issue the bond and then you're having to explain why you're not doing that it becomes very cumbersome as far as communication back to the but that sounds like the same thing you know only only you're being you're being crystal clear as to what you're what the voters are voting on it's one way to go I'm it's not staff recommendation okay I'm very appreciative of Councilman's Watts clarity and and and then the mayor makes a good point about the historic City Hall perhaps the historic City Hall ought to be sold to a private developer and let let he she do something with it thank you mr. man okay Councilman watch you is that yeah you get just real quick yeah just to yeah I'm not for selling City Hall West so and Cassie I hear your explanation about the flexibility within a bond program and I get that I've been on council a while and I think if we really looked back historically most of our bond programs we've had to supplement with CEOs so and and then that giving and taking of different monies it does have to come back to the City Council through the bond oversight committee but yet in the end let's take Bonnie Bray and let's take some of these others that we've had to augment with CEOs so that's just the nature of the beast I don't know if I'm for splitting them all out because I think when you have the drainage projects for like getting things out of the floodplain I think that's a very consistent grouping for me it was just simply though that one item C was so large and C even with the motion that's on the table on the floor if we just put out City Hall that park system still has parks and trails in it there's a component there that is still that it sort of gets so my big push was to separate out it I had my preference if it my aspiration is just simply say City Hall West the library and the senior center would be their separate propositions understanding that if there wasn't enough money passed which there's typically not we would come back with CEOs to augment that if needed as we've done in the past so I get the need for the flexibility but even with that flexibility and past bond programs we still have to come in and backstop with with some CEO so and it's it's not I mean it's nothing and I'm not gonna have a big fight over this it's just I think that that's what would bring real clarity to the voters understanding there's some risk to understanding there's some risk but I think that would provide them with the biggest ticket items and they could say yes yes yes so and then those are my and I know those are those are my final comments I'm not gonna unless I'm making a different motion or something so I appreciate appreciate that yeah before before I recognize you probably and I just want I'm summarizing my notes here so that I can get out of the way first I need to know how many square feet is South Branch Library 40,000 proposed 40,000 40,000 for 50 million right yeah that's right it was adjusted 48 and I'm a round down okay Councilman Melzer why do math yeah I would actually not at all object to withdrawing my motion substituting what you're just suggested I mean I was just looking for what would be clear and not give up something valuable but you know I take your point based on your experience with it that that's not a big give up we managed to do that so yeah give me a sign would you like me to do that I mean yeah because I'm no but no I have no objection we so then I mean or do you want to draw my motion you make yours I'm gonna speak so you withdrawn your motion well I'm looking for a little bit of I know indication from I know it's been a long time right like you've been all over the place with yeah cuz I'm trying to solve a problem but I'm gonna draw my motion okay okay good then y'all can talk amongst yourselves well hopefully we'll have something that they can move forward with I just want to have a clear record really quick everything I've heard I haven't I still don't have a clear answer on City Hall West right we're saying depending on I guess where it's placed is what's gonna be we had it placed in parks and then staff came up and said it could be all these different things but it couldn't have been all those things based on legal counsel unless it's placed differently so as proposed that answer was wrong and so I'm just saying there we have no idea what City Hall West is gonna be so I'm gonna switch the numbers it's a million dollars per office but hey we don't know if it's gonna be that many offices but there's more offices it's somewhere around seven hundred thousand dollars per office that we're getting ready to vote for round numbers but let's go specific 5,000 square feet that's three thousand five hundred seventy four dollars per square foot versus a library with people had a hard time with ninety nine hundred sixty dollars per square foot a library that people were upset about for forty eight million nine hundred sixty dollars per square foot a building that will not relieve any staff pressure it'll just move staff three thousand five hundred seventy four dollars per square foot no matter what you do with it shocking then the comment was made well that three thousand five hundred seventy four purse first per square foot is worth it because nothing's getting done but not to worry city staff at City Hall that's over packed we'll get something done with City Hall it won't be like the other one like we've kicked the can down the road somehow we're gonna and then we talked about a facility master plan being done as the pending item well that's interesting we have a facility report in hand right now that's being ignored it had the priorities of the buildings and we're ignoring that so we have a study in hand that we're ignoring and then I cannot leave a record clear and I challenge anybody to dispute these numbers they I'm openly challenging anyone that spoke and said the city the bond committee didn't support this you give me the data tonight I'll make a note of it and here it is that the bond committee had six meetings on the fifth meeting next to last meeting 37 percent were in support but no p3 for a city facility meetings meeting facility 10 percent were in support with a p3 7% were unsure that's a total of 53 percent in some support majority in support and there was a clear line item that said no absolutely lot under no circumstances 47 percent so the majority of the council of the bond committee one day before it was finalized 53 percent so I don't want to hear that there were no support for it and it wasn't the priority of the council of that committee and these numbers are in your backup they're all over the place they're undisputed then you'll say 63 percent were for the max of 300 million so 53 percent city city meeting space focused 67 percent for the max which were short of so there's a gap there of they were okay with another 30 million 67 percent so the majority of the bond committee supported some action to address the 170 percent 107 percent capacity of City Hall and we do nothing so but we spend 1 million dollars per office or three thousand five hundred seventy four dollars per square foot and we're absolutely good with that we have a report in hand that's not that important we need another report in hand that maybe will move the needle and we'll get that done I just don't believe it I believe the voters should be heard and I believe it was a it was a council priority not only was it a bond committee for priority at the fifth meeting it was a council priority in 2022 so council priority and we can't even get it on a ballot that's interesting what a difference a year makes and I'll just say this the argument about CEOs in budgeting that's not this that's not this staff right if you look at everything that was identified was previous bonds when we weren't doing the math right 2019 is on pace and we even have to slow it down because we're doing too good so the new staff new direction spot-on no deficits previous sins of previous bond committees we're covering those up and somehow that's a penalty so I just there's nothing that no matter how this this is proposed I'm not okay with a million dollars per office I'm not okay with two thousand no three thousand more dollars per square foot than the library we had a problem with a hard pass and and and and and it's it's to the staff that is here at City Hall my sincere apologies man I I don't know what to do I will keep at it but it I would think it earns it the information before us warrants it going to the voters because it gets us out of this cycle of these people on this dais saying making the universal decision because if we have and this is why I'm so passionate about it because if we put it to the voters then the citizens could say it is a priority to us the staff has an opportunity to negotiate with their neighbor with their other fellow dip nights and say hey come on do me a solid we need this and rally and have a grassroots support show up in November and make it happen and and have a great place or at least a plan in place and measure city and resident support I don't know that's what I want to measure I want to measure city support but we're willing to put a City Hall West on the ballot by itself and if it doesn't pass it's the same problem right so I don't know why we're willing to risk something it has and it has no plan it's it's 15 offices it's 20 offices it may be more than that it may be community space we don't know has no plan so but we know this it's 5,000 square feet at 17 million dollars three thousand five hundred and seventy four dollars per square foot Councilman Watts yeah thank you mayor I'm gonna make a motion to let me pull up the ordinance okay here it is I'm gonna make a motion to approve the ordinance with a couple of modifications in city of Denton proposition C I don't know how it would show up on the the ballot as far as its structure but I'd like to just have a separate proposition for make the motion to have a separate proposition for the library for the senior center and for City Hall West I would like if if we can able to calculate it and the language is fine if they're split out but I'd like to have somewhere in there that says that amount that's being proposed includes X amount of dollars for public art because I think the total package just so that they understand instead of having to do the math so that's my motion and thank you any concerns legal wise no just a clarification though that each each of the the library the senior center in the city always are each a separate proposition okay okay councilman Meltzer I second okay discussion Councilman Holler so then would that be ABCDE and then the adult would be F F South Branch would be G historic City Hall would be something else is that right so there'd be 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 8 okay okay all right any other questions all right let's vote on the screen and that passes five to two that takes us to concluding items I'll be out Thursday and Friday I'm taking my other son to Texas A&M so I will be out of the office but Frank and Christine will be here I think Cassie may be out on some much-needed time off okay who's gonna be okay got it okay council member I just want to say hello to everyone and just let you all know that I received a full hip replacement on last Tuesday and I'm gonna pat myself on the back for lasting this long and we'll just keep our fingers crossed that I make it to the car so just want to make sure that you all knew that in thank you for your support yes Councilman Holler congratulations to council member bird on her on her single hip get back to me when you haven't second one done I would like to invite everyone but particularly my colleagues on the council to come to Denton High School on Sunday September 10th at 5 p.m. we will be putting 3,000 flags in front of Denton High School commemorating the attack on New York City each flag has the name of a victim we've done this for a number of years it's a very moving thing we put them out in in military precision it's it's very very impressive and I would love to have all of you come out and help us wrap that up Sunday September 10th at 5 o'clock it'll be up on September 11th and then we'll take it down at the end of the day what time 5 5 a.m. yeah no no 5 p.m. on Sunday got it a September 11th is on a Monday got it okay thank you councilman bird did you already spoke you're good okay mayor pretend I'll be brief thank you mr. mayor I'll remind everyone of the dog days coming up on November 9th and I will also sorry September night thank you for the corrections September 9th and also on that same day the League of Women Voters is having their kickoff meeting so I encourage people to show up to that as well okay just there there's parade Saturday rodeo starts Friday so please attend that things around Kroger be really busy so patience if you're driving down care Boulevard around University and let's get out of here it is 1054 will conclude tonight's meeting